24assets

24Assets
“This book is a powerful new look at how to build

®
a business that makes an impact in the world.”
Paul Lindley, Founder of Ella’s Kitchen
In every industry, there are companies that take off. They effortlessly
hire talented people, attract loyal customers, create cool products
and make lots of money. These companies seem to stand out and
scale up quickly with support from investors, partners and the media.
Sadly, most companies don’t perform this way. Most entrepreneurs

aren’t building anything of value. They work hard, make sacrifices,
24Assets
24Assets
struggle, dream, plan and strive, but in the end, it doesn’t pay off.
®
This book sets out a method for building a business that becomes a
valuable asset. It focuses you on transforming your organisation into
something scalable, digital, fun and capable of making an impact.
Create a digital, scalable, valuable and fun
It’s time to, stand out, scale up and build
business that will thrive in a fast changing world
a business that has a life of its own.
®
Start now by reading this book.
“24 Assets offers a fresh look at how to advance your business in

the digital age. If you want a business that scales and achieves value,
you’ll need to develop the business assets prescribed in this book.”
DANIEL PRIESTLEY
Dale Murray CBE, Entrepreneur and Angel Investor
“Now is the time to build businesses that have a huge impact.

That means becoming successful and making a difference
beyond philanthropy – it’s about embedding values to
build value. This book shows you how to do both.”
Lord Dr Michael Hastings CBE
“A powerful system for building a business

that is robust, valuable, enjoyable – an asset.”
Andrew Griffiths, Australia’s #1 Entrepreneurial Author
UK £12.99 / USA $16.99 / AUS $19.99
Books DANIEL PRIESTLEY

Published by Rethink Press (www.rethinkpress.com)
24Assets
“This book is a powerful new look at how to build
®
a business that makes an impact in the world.”
Paul Lindley, Founder of Ella’s Kitchen
hire talented people, attract loyal customers, create cool products
and make lots of money. These companies seem to stand out and
scale up quickly with support from investors, partners and the media.
Sadly, most companies don’t perform this way. Most entrepreneurs

aren’t building anything of value. They work hard, make sacrifices,
24Assets
24Assets
struggle, dream, plan and strive, but in the end, it doesn’t pay off.
®
This book sets out a method for building a business that becomes a
valuable asset. It focuses you on transforming your organisation into
something scalable, digital, fun and capable of making an impact.
It’s time to, stand out, scale up and build
a business that has a life of its own.
®
Start now by reading this book.
“24 Assets offers a fresh look at how to advance your business in

the digital age. If you want a business that scales and achieves value,
you’ll need to develop the business assets prescribed in this book.”
DANIEL PRIESTLEY
Dale Murray CBE, Entrepreneur and Angel Investor
“Now is the time to build businesses that have a huge impact.

That means becoming successful and making a difference
beyond philanthropy – it’s about embedding values to
build value. This book shows you how to do both.”
Lord Dr Michael Hastings CBE
“A powerful system for building a business

that is robust, valuable, enjoyable – an asset.”
Andrew Griffiths, Australia’s #1 Entrepreneurial Author
UK £12.99 / USA $16.99 / AUS $19.99
Books DANIEL PRIESTLEY

Published by Rethink Press (www.rethinkpress.com)
24Assets
®
DANIEL PRIESTLEY
Books
First published in Great Britain 2017 by Rethink Press
(www.rethinkpress.com)
© Copyright Daniel Priestley
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in
any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the
publisher.
The right of Daniel Priestley to be identified as the author of this

work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way
of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise
circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of
binding or cover other than that in which it is published and
without a similar condition including this condition being imposed
on the subsequent purchaser.
Illustrations by Andrew Priestley

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 1
SOMETHING IS MISSING FROM THE METHOD 4
PART 1 – THE ENTREPRENEUR JOURNEY 5

CHAPTER 1 – THE JOURNEY 7
THE ENTREPRENEUR JOURNEY 9
CHAPTER 2 – INCOME FOLLOWS ASSETS 19
TOOLS VS ASSETS 23
CHAPTER 3 – ASSET CREATION 27
PASSIVE INCOME 27
ALCHEMY OR ADMINISTRATION 31
CHAPTER 4 – CHANGE YOUR THINKING 41
PROFIT AND LOSS VS BALANCE SHEET THINKING 41
PART 2 – 24 ASSETS 53
CHAPTER 5 – 24 ASSETS OVERVIEW 55
CHAPTER 6 – INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ASSETS 63
ASSET 1: CONTENT 64
ASSET 2: METHODOLOGY 66
ASSET 3: REGISTERED INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY (IP) 67
HOW DO YOU RATE YOURSELF? 68
RAPID ACTION STEPS 69
WORDS FROM THE EXPERTS 70
iv 24 Assets
CHAPTER 7 – BRAND ASSETS 71

ASSET 4: THE PHILOSOPHY 72
ASSET 5: IDENTITY 74
ASSET 6: AMBASSADORS 77
WORDS FROM THE EXPERTS 80
CHAPTER 8 – MARKET ASSETS 81
ASSET 7: POSITIONING 82
ASSET 8: CHANNELS 85
ASSET 9: DATA 87
A WORD FROM AN EXPERT 89
CHAPTER 9 – PRODUCT ASSETS 91
ASSET 10: GIFTS 94
ASSET 11: PRODUCT-FOR-PROSPECTS (P4P) 95
ASSET 12: CORE PRODUCT 96
ASSET 13: PRODUCTS FOR CLIENTS (P4C) 97
CHAPTER 10 – SYSTEMS ASSETS 101
ASSET 14: MARKETING AND SALES SYSTEMS 103
ASSET 15: MANAGEMENT AND ADMINISTRATION SYSTEMS 104
ASSET 16: OPERATIONS SYSTEMS 106
CHAPTER 11 – CULTURE ASSETS 109
ASSET 17: KEY PEOPLE OF INFLUENCE 112
ASSET 18: SALES AND MARKETING 113
ASSET 19: MANAGEMENT AND ADMINISTRATION 114
ASSET 20: TECHNICIANS 115
Contents v

CHAPTER 12 – FUNDING ASSETS 119
ASSET 21: BUSINESS PLAN 120
ASSET 22: VALUATION 121
ASSET 23: STRUCTURE 123
ASSET 24: RISK MITIGATION 126
SUMMARY
ASSETS ARE THE KEY 131
PART 3 – ASSET CREATION 135

CHAPTER 13 – WHAT ARE YOUR CORE ASSETS? 137
FARMING FOR ASSETS 140
CHAPTER 14 – BUILDING YOUR ASSETS 145
CAN YOU BUILD A HOUSE? 145
EVERY PROBLEM IS AN ASSET DEFICIENCY 148
CHAPTER 15 – THE ASSET CREATION CYCLE 151
CONCEPTS AND IDEAS 151
CONSTRUCT A BRIEFING DOCUMENT 152
SELECT YOUR SUPPLIERS 153
BETA VERSION 154
COMMERCIAL VERSION 155
THE REMARKABLE VERSION 156
A REMARKABLE BUSINESS 157
BLACK BELTS BEAT WHITE BELTS 160
CHAPTER 16 – ENVIRONMENT DICTATES PERFORMANCE 163
ENVIRONMENT DICTATES PERFORMANCE 164
ACCESS TO CURRENT BEST PRACTICES 165
A PEER GROUP TO NORMALISE HIGH STANDARDS 166
vi 24 Assets
EXTERNAL ACCOUNTABILITY AND CONSEQUENCES 168

ACCESS TO RESOURCES 169
CHAPTER 17 – THE GREAT WAVES 173
THE FIVE GREAT TRENDS 174
CHAPTER 18 – SURF OR GET DUMPED 187
THE SURFER 187
PADDLING ONTO THE WAVE 189
RIDING YOUR SURFBOARD 189
SELECTING A GLOBAL GOAL 191
ASSET ZERO 194
REFERENCES 197
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 198
THE AUTHOR 199
For my family – my greatest asset
INTRODUCTION
hire talented people, attract loyal customers, create cool products and
make lots of money. These companies seem to stand out and scale-
up quickly with support from investors, partners and the media.
Sadly, most companies don’t perform this way.
Most entrepreneurs aren’t building anything of value. They work
hard, make sacrifices, struggle, dream, plan and strive, but in the
end, it doesn’t pay off.
When I first discovered entrepreneurship, I was a blind optimist
and believed that most entrepreneurs were succeeding, earning big
money, enjoying freedom and making an impact. I knew there was
work involved, but I couldn’t understand why people wouldn’t
choose to be an entrepreneur – success was a sure thing if you were
ambitious, tenacious and focused on adding value.
Over the following 15 years, I had the chance to interview
thousands of entrepreneurs and I discovered that on the whole they
were hurting. Most were highly confident when they started out –
smart, hard-working and dedicated as well – but their businesses
were failing to provide real benefits. This game was beating them
and after several years they weren’t so self-assured.
2 24 Assets
Statistically, you’ll work harder and earn less as a self-employed

person than you would in a salaried job. The very reasons people
start businesses – to earn more, work less and have a bigger impact
– are actually less likely to occur.
Fortunately, I also had the chance to get close to a number of
highly successful entrepreneurs who were living the dream. I flew
on private jets with them, visited their palatial homes, spent time
in their businesses and relaxed with them on extended holiday
breaks. It was this contrasting experience that first allowed me to
discover the ideas contained in this book.
I set out to codify the way for businesses to scale-up, earn great
money, stand the test of time and create fun places to work. The
answer is 24 Assets. There are 24 assets a business needs to develop,
and this ecosystem of value produces scale, robustness and
enjoyment.
An asset is anything that would still be valuable without you.
Consider the traditional assets. Your home doesn’t change in value
when you walk out the door. Shares in a blue-chip company don’t
fall if a shareholder takes a holiday. Assets such as art, wine and
metals maintain value regardless of what their owners are doing.
In your own business, it’s hard to see the assets. You’re so close
to them that all you’re likely to see is a whirling mess of tasks,
systems, documents, websites, lists. One day you’re making sales,
then you’re in a meeting about a strategic partnership, then you’re
brainstorming with a team member and then you’re presenting
financials to the bank for an overdraft. It’s hard to spot anything
that’s happening without you.
This book is going to demystify assets. By the end, you’ll know
Introduction 3
what’s an asset and what’s just work. You’ll know how to create
them and improve them. You’ll know how to drive an important
number – revenue per person. The higher it gets, the more quality
assets you’ve built. You’ll know that income follows assets, there are
24 assets your business must develop, and that the best assets to
own in today’s economy are ‘soft’ or ‘intangible’ assets – digital
assets.
We often hear about the entrepreneur who sold their company
for a life-changing sum of money, but rarely do we get the
breakdown of the assets the business had in order to achieve such
a lofty valuation. I’m going to help you understand your business
and your competitors’ businesses with a far deeper insight to give
you a framework for building and developing the 24 assets that
matter in today’s economy. If you follow this plan, you will watch
your revenue per person improve and there will be more money
flowing around. You’ll have a choice – take a short-term win, paying
out dividends and bonuses, or invest in further research and asset
development to stay ahead of the game.
The world is going through massive transformation, and it’s
speeding up. This book will cover several factors creating a tsunami
of change in every industry. You have the chance to surf that wave,
have an impact, change lives and shape the future if you have a
business that’s positioned correctly. Conversely, I believe that if you
fail to create the 24 business assets covered in this book, you run a
serious risk of being dumped by the wave and swept out to sea –
another business that fails due to disruption.
If you follow the plan in this book and do the work to develop
your ecosystem of assets you’ll be able to build either a lifestyle
4 24 Assets
business or a performance business. In the decades ahead, a

boutique lifestyle business will give you the opportunity to travel,
build a community, make a difference and earn a high income. A
performance business will scale up, solve big and meaningful
problems, generate millions in revenue and create tens of millions
(or more) in shareholder value. You can use the tools in this book
to create whichever type of business you desire but, you must also
add something special as well.
SOMETHING IS MISSING FROM THE METHOD
There are 24 assets to create, but there’s also something vital to your
business that will bring all of these assets to life. If you fail to
discover this unique asset, there’s a good chance that you’ll have a
soulless, uninteresting business that is technically correct but still
doesn’t work.
Entrepreneurship is alchemy, and you can’t create something
from nothing without a little bit of magic. I can’t tell you what your
missing asset is – it’s unique to you.
As you read through the book, keep an open mind and a keen
eye out for what’s missing. I want you to discover it. Something
hasn’t happened yet; something is due to unfold; something is
waiting to get done. Only you can spot it.
When you find what I call ‘asset zero’, you’ll know what I mean
when I say, ‘Be brave, have fun and make a dent.’
PART 1
THE
ENTREPRENEUR
JOURNEY
CHAPTER 1
THE JOURNEY
Sitting down with me for a coffee meeting, a guy I’d never met
before began sharing with me a few snippets of information about
his growing enterprise. Rather than buying into the surface story, I
told him that there was probably tension in his team, he was
constantly out of cash and he was regularly thinking about the
‘good old days’, considering whether he should go back to a smaller
team. Several of his staff were fighting and others were sleeping
together, he was losing great people, clients weren’t happy, his
business partner had mentally checked-out, he was feeling isolated
and not sharing the extent of his problems with anyone.
Shocked, he nodded in agreement. All he had told me was his
industry, current team size and the top-line revenue number of his
London-based business. With those few clues, I had verbalised
several key issues with absolute accuracy.
I’m not a clairvoyant; I’ve just talked with thousands of business
owners and discovered the entrepreneur’s journey is more
predictable than most people realise. All businesses exist on an axis
of team size and revenue per person (RPP) – the same things
8 24 Assets
happen over and over again as teams grow and revenue tries to keep
up. When you see businesses on these two axes, they follow a
predictable pattern of growth.
You might be asking why I’ve honed in on revenue per person

and not profit per person or gross profit per person. People who
run private companies usually try to minimise profit, and many
don’t have a clear understanding of gross profit per person. In fast
growth companies, it’s usual for the entrepreneur and the CFO to
have heated arguments about whether the company is actually
profitable or losing money.
In my experience, any metrics that need an accountant to
decipher will not hold the interest of an entrepreneur for long.
Revenue per person is a ‘back of a napkin’ number that works for
small companies. As a business matures, it might switch over to
gross profit per person or EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest,
Taxes, Depreciation and Amortisation) per person if it has access
to this information easily in real time.
Chapter 1 – The Journey 9
You might also wonder who counts as a ‘person’. In this case, it

is someone who considers the business to be their main career focus.
If your graphic designer tells friends that you are merely one of
their clients, then they are a supplier, but if they say they work for
you then they count as a person on the team. If someone is part-
time or on a special discounted rate (e.g. graduate, apprentice) then
they probably count as half a person.
If a business has 50 people and 10 million revenue, it’s likely to
be more financially successful than a company that has 100 people
and 12 million revenue. When it comes to business success, the two
numbers that cut through a lot of noise are the number of people
on the team and the average revenue per person.
THE ENTREPRENEUR JOURNEY
I run a global business accelerator. From 2010–2015, our team

interviewed over 4,000 entrepreneurs and leaders in the UK, USA,
Australia and Singapore. We discovered a common journey that
businesses go through that presents the same problems in the same
order time and time again. The solutions are predictable as well; in
fact, there are industries dedicated to fixing these problems if you
know what you’re looking for.
Here are the stages in the Entrepreneur Journey:
1. Startup. Every business began as a concept in someone’s mind, with

excitement and nervousness in anticipation of launch. Working with
ideas, plans, prototypes and skill sets, someone created a vision,
expecting rewards of money, more meaningful work and increased
freedom. In their mind, it was brilliant, and so they began.
10 24 Assets
2. Wilderness (1–2 founders). After launching, most businesses end

up in survival mode with the founders working alone. There’s no
team to help with making sales, delivering the service or day-to-
day operations. The owner is left with little spare time, money or
freedom. They swing between stress and boredom, often feeling
lost and unable to see a way to break the cycle. In the UK, USA
and Australia, 75% of all businesses do not reach a point where they
can employ anyone.
3. Struggling boutique (3–12 people with low revenue per person). A

small team begins to form and the roles become more focused. The
struggling boutique is able to pay basic wages but it’s not very
profitable. It defines itself by geography (e.g. Paddington Pizza
Shop, Birmingham Printing) and fails to develop many assets,
mostly trading time for money.
4. Lifestyle boutique (3–12 people with high revenue per person). A

small, dynamic team with low overheads and high-energy culture
forms. The team self-organises, has fun developing digital assets
that reach people globally and the business looks much bigger than
it is. The owner receives better income than they could get at a
corporate job with more freedom, greater impact and less stress.
This type of business often centres on a ‘Key Person of Influence’
who’s known, liked and trusted in their industry.
5. The desert (13–49 people). During this scaling phase the business
is too big to be a small boutique and too small to be a big business.
The overheads increase with additional staff and investment into
growth. The business requires leaders, managers and technicians
but can’t afford these roles. Although the fundamental business is

sound, it becomes unprofitable, and investing into long-term
projects kills cash flow. Culture is damaged as it’s pulled in two
directions – the flat structure of the past vs the professional culture
of the future. It needs to either grow or shrink fast before it runs
out of cash.
6. The factory (50+ people with low revenue per person). Adding a
high headcount without improving revenue per person creates a
stressful business known as a factory. The business is always on the
edge of a financial cliff as payroll ticks over month by month.
There’s no money to reward the high-performers and they leave,
and there’s no money for research and development so things
stagnate. The business begins a cycle of cutting back overheads and
eroding the few assets it once had.
7. Performance (50–150 people with high revenue per person). This is

a dynamic team of professionals working with high-quality business
assets. The business is almost unrecognisable from the lifestyle
boutique it once was. The culture, brand, systems and products have
all shifted up a gear and the business now serves more markets and
territories. There’s healthy profit from well-developed strategic
assets (mostly digital or intangible). The business owners can either
hold on and enjoy the profit or exit for a life-changing amount of
money.
8. Unicorn (250+ people with ultra-high revenue per person). This is

a performance team that was in the right place at the right time
with the right opportunity and access to lots of funding – like
Facebook, Uber, Tesla and LinkedIn. They receive a lot of attention
12 24 Assets
and achieve soaring valuations in a short timeframe. These

businesses are almost impossible to replicate, although thousands
of copycats try.
9. The corporation (250+ employees and established in the market).

This big, established, bureaucratic beast has lots of assets and many
people working to sweat or improve them. Corporations used to
enjoy a gilded position because not much could dethrone a business
with global scale and strength. More recently, every corporation has
needed to think like an entrepreneurial team or risk being disrupted
by a fast growth performer or unexpected unicorn. The money
flowing around corporations is now fair game for ambitious
entrepreneurial teams.
Knowing these predictable phases can guide you towards the

business you want. If you are an entrepreneur with a level head, your
real choice is to focus on either a lifestyle or a performance business.
Unicorns require so much in the way of luck and deep pockets that
it’s impossible to plan them and no one wants to be alone in the

wilderness or sweating it out in the desert.
I’ve worked closely with hundreds of entrepreneurs and leaders
around the world in 50+ industries, and consistently they make
poor decisions that are incongruent with the type of business they
are in or wish to build. For example, many people in the wilderness
say they want a lifestyle but refuse to hire anyone, instead juggling
emails, accounting tasks, scheduling, selling, logistics and delivering
technical expertise. They have anything but a lifestyle and are
unable to switch off for a break or earn more money than they’d
make in a job.
If a person knows they want a lifestyle business, they need to hire
a few people, but avoid a team of more than 12, which will require
management and leadership. They should also avoid setting
expectations within their team of high growth and hierarchical
structure, instead emphasising fun, flexibility and variety.
An entrepreneur with performance ambitions makes very
different decisions about whom they hire, how much funding they
raise and how they spend their money. If they learn from a lifestyle
entrepreneur, they’ll get completely stuck at 25 people and have to
shrink their business back to a team of fewer than 12 as they give
up on their dream of a big exit or a huge impact.
It’s easy to get consumed in your own business and lose
perspective. Many people reason that business ‘takes time’ and every
challenge is unique. In reality, business follows predictable phases
of growth, and many challenges are common and solvable. Most
problems can be addressed quickly and time is an enemy, not a
friend when it comes to leaving issues unchecked.
14 24 Assets
By the end of this book, you’ll have a clear strategy for building
either a lifestyle or a performance business that is scalable, valuable
and energising to run. Follow the strategy and you’ll also have a
greater ability to reach people, influence, solve meaningful problems
and use your business as a force for good. But for now, I want you
to make an honest decision about the type of business you want –
and can achieve.
Jeremy Jauncey is living his dream. He has over 12 million
followers on Instagram accounts. His business revolves around him
and his brother travelling to exotic locations, photographing their
adventures and posting the pictures on social media. The more fun,
the better the adventure, the more wonderful the experiences and
the more money the business makes.
The business is called Beautiful Destinations and has a small,
flexible team of eight professionals who manage the various aspects
while Jeremy jets around the world, staying at the best hotels and
having outrageous adventures full-time.
Jeremy has a lifestyle business.
Rob Gardner is living his dream. He arrives in his central London
offices early, and by 9am he is surrounded by 100 of the most talented
and hard-working people in the pension fund industry. The company
now wins business from giant corporations, along with major awards,
and has a world-class graduate programme and a charity that gives
financial education to children in the UK.
The business is called Redington and it is fast growing across
new products, markets and territories. Rob and his business partner
Dawid have bold ambitions to shake up their industry, improve the
lives of 100 million people and transform the education system.
Rob has a performance business.

Both of these men are in their 30s, both consider themselves to
be successful and both have built exactly the type of business and
lifestyle they want.
You can choose to pursue a lifestyle or a performance business

using the 24 assets method. You might need to take into
consideration whether you have what it takes to build a performance
business – if you have a young family or are in a saturated industry,
it’s going to be harder, and if you like what you do but you don’t really
like ‘business stuff ’, it will be very hard indeed.
For most people, the answer will be a lifestyle business with a
team of 3–12 people, a Key Person of Influence at the helm and
lots of digital assets. This will still give you high revenue per person,
great income and the ability to reach many thousands of people
with your message.
16 24 Assets
Almost anyone can make it to Everest Base Camp, but few

people have what it takes to get to the summit. In these times with
the technology that’s widely available, almost anyone can build a
lifestyle business (especially if they develop their 24 assets), but few
are cut out to go beyond that.
A lifestyle business is lean, dynamic, portable and geared towards
maximising income for the owners. It keeps stress and overheads
low. The focus is to enjoy life, build stability and have enough
income to create wealth through diversified assets. 24 Assets helps
build these assets that keep working even when the owner is away.
At some point the business can be sold, but normally not for a life-
changing amount of money.
Both require higher than average revenue per person, which is
why you must develop assets. This decision will shape the quality
of the assets you create and the suppliers you choose to work with.
It would be crazy to appoint McKinsey & Co to write your business
plan if you want a lifestyle business, although it would add value to
have their stamp on your forecast if you were building a
performance business.
A performance business is focused on achieving a high valuation,
fast growth and acquiring market share. There’s plenty of stress and
challenge as the team grows, but it all becomes worth it when life-
changing amounts of money change hands via an exit or large
dividends. Some people build performance businesses for reasons
other than money, because they want to fulfil a big vision that
requires them to achieve a certain scale.
If you go down the performance path, 24 Assets helps you build
a business that will hold together as the growth kicks in. As you
open up new markets, launch new products, increase the employee

headcount and take on investment, your business assets will
perform under pressure. On the day that you get an offer to sell the
business for a life-changing amount of money, you’re likely to be
reluctant to accept because you’ll know the value of its high
performing assets.
Of course, the default option for most entrepreneurs is to
struggle – the wilderness, the local boutique, the desert or the
factory. Most business owners are stuck making reactive moves.
They think that if they keep going on their own, one day things
will improve and the business will be worth something. Sadly, this
struggle doesn’t end well. It’s like trying to build a house without
an architect, an engineer or a team of experienced builders – rarely
will the finished product be worth anything, and any savings are a
false economy.
For the rest of the book, keep in mind what you are aiming for
– lifestyle or performance. This decision will drive the quality of
the assets you create, the type of people you bring onto your team,
the suppliers you select to work with and the point at which you
know you’ve made it.
CHAPTER 2
INCOME
FOLLOWS ASSETS
In central London there’s a serviced office building, home to over

100 companies. Some of them are small – four or five people in a
room; some of the companies occupy a whole floor.
These companies do all sorts of things. Mostly they offer
professional services in one form or another, but some are brokerage
businesses and a few are involved in manufacturing a physical product.
On every floor are sales people. They are often young men and
women who have spark, determination and a desire to impress their
team leaders. The good ones are hungry for training, arrive early
and leave late. Despite their overwhelming similarities, they have
vastly different results in what they produce and often earn very
different incomes.
Many of them have coffee together in the building cafe and compare
notes. Some manage existing clients; some chase new business. Some
make 70 calls a day and get two people to agree to a free trial; some
20 24 Assets
have four face-to-face meetings a day and typically get £25,000 in

orders. Some sales people are making £30K a year and some are making
£90K. Why do their results vary so much? Why does a motivated 23-
year-old selling retargeted Google ad campaigns generate £500k in
new business, while their clone down the hall at a financial planning
company is lucky to set a few appointments a week for a free
consultation? The answer is simple – income follows assets. All a sales
person can do is ‘sweat an asset’, but they can’t get blood from a stone.
An estate agent can easily sell a four-bedroom apartment in Mayfair,
London for £5 million. The same agent would struggle to sell the exact
same apartment for a third of the price if it was located in Liverpool.
The majority of the work to achieve a high price is done by the fact
that property in Mayfair is more valuable than property in Liverpool,
rather than the skill-set of the sales person.
It’s easy to understand that income follows assets when it comes to
traditional assets like residential property, and that the quality of the
asset matters. If someone owns a house, they can earn rent. If a person
owns shares, it’s not surprising when they get a dividend. Government
bonds pay a yield.
We can also easily understand traditional business assets that might
show up on a balance sheet. If a company owns a storage shed
compound, they can rent it out to people who need to store their
valuables. If someone owns a truck, they can earn more profit doing
furniture removals than someone who doesn’t own a truck. If someone
owns a widget manufacturing plant they naturally make their money
creating and selling widgets.
What most people fail to see is the impact of soft assets or new-
economy digital assets. A salesperson who’s working for a respected
Chapter 2 – Income Follows Assets 21
brand will make more sales than someone who’s working for an
unknown startup. If a company has beautifully produced videos,
brochures, blogs and websites, it can make a lot more money than a
company that doesn’t invest in quality design and print. When a
business has a finely kept database of 10,000 records, the sales people
think they are brilliant. If the same people had to find their own leads
and cold-call them, they’d earn a lot less.
Soft digital assets drive income today as much as traditional assets
like property, factories or machinery did in the industrial age. An
empty restaurant would start to bustle if it was taken over by a celebrity
chef. A consulting firm would have a waiting list if the Managing
Partner wrote a best-selling business book. A brokerage business would
earn more if it won a major industry award and was featured in a
respected magazine. These achievements all represent soft assets.
Entrepreneurs and business leaders all over the world have come
to think that income is correlated with sales and marketing activity,
but this is short sighted. Income is inextricably linked to the
underlying assets.
If you want more income flowing through your business, develop
new assets, improve the assets you have or buy assets that someone
else has created, resisting the urge to keep focusing on lead generation,
sales conversions and hustle. If hard work was rewarding, every woman
in Africa would be a millionaire. Assets have always been the key to
building income; it’s one of the first things we learn from the board-
game Monopoly – green houses and red hotels win the game. What’s
changed is the nature of these assets.
If I was writing a book about assets any time prior to 2000, I would
probably talk about property, shares, plant and equipment, cash, bonds
22 24 Assets
and collectables. These assets now give little reward, and their price
has never been so inflated and volatile. We don’t live in the industrial
and agricultural age anymore – we live in the digital age, and the assets
that matter are also digital. They can occupy the most important space
on the planet now – the screen of a smartphone.
A wealthy land-owner in the agricultural age would have a hard
time believing that the richest people in the industrial age don’t own
very much land. In the industrial age a small plot of land with a
productive factory would out-produce a large farm. The industrial
revolution transformed the assets that mattered most from land,
animals and crops to factories, machines and stock.
As we move into the digital age, the assets that matter most are
changing again. The people who are earning the most income in
today’s business landscape are the owners of digital assets – intellectual
property, brands, products, algorithms, websites, systems and software.
They have books available on the Kindle store, videos on YouTube,
podcast shows ready for download, business plans on crowdfunding
platforms, collaborators working on their teams, and everything’s held
together in the digital landscape.
24 Assets is your new portfolio; an approach to building an ecosystem
of digital assets that will scale, add value and create stability. The 24
assets, especially when you have all of them, will give you more income
and more freedom than traditional assets. You and a small team will
become highly productive income generating machines who make the
most of the unique times we are in.
A simple definition of a business asset is anything that is unique to
your business and would continue to add value even if any particular
person left. A digital asset fits that description and it can be
experienced online, transferred as a file or coded as an algorithm, and

the cost of reproducing it once it’s created it is negligible. If you were
on a deserted island, the assets in your business would be unaffected
in value; if you had access to a smartphone, the digital assets would be
ready at your fingertips.
TOOLS VS ASSETS
The world is full of great business building tools now – Microsoft,

Wordpress, Cisco, MailChimp, Xero, Google, Amazon and
Salesforce all offer powerful tools. YouTube offers your business
video production tools; Facebook has tools for advertising and
audience building; PayPal has tools for collecting money.
24 24 Assets
These companies have all invested millions upon millions of

dollars to create these tools, but everyone has access to them, so
tools alone don’t grow your business; assets do. These tools don’t
work without you plugging your assets into them. A YouTube
account doesn’t do much unless you upload a video. Facebook ads
need you to provide the images and the copy. Webinars need you
to have slides and a script. MailChimp can optimise your email
marketing provided you’ve got something to say.
Assets are unique to your business. Tools are available for
everyone to use.
Struggling businesses obsess over tools. They put hours of
research into understanding the features of a CRM system; get
excited about auto-responder software; read blogs about shopping
carts and which colour button has the highest click-through rate.
Successful businesses obsess over their assets. They focus on

capturing powerful stories on video, write insightful blogs, win
awards for their work and get insanely specific about their company
brand and culture. Armed with great assets like books, reports,
videos and a honed message, these companies quickly discover that
any of the tools they use come to life and perform. A business with
amazing assets can use very basic tools and get a huge result.
Conversely, a business with every tool ever developed but nothing
much to say is dead in the water.
We live in an era where tools will actually come and find you if
your assets are good enough. The musician Seal decided to use his
following on Facebook to unearth talented buskers. As he walks the
city streets, he finds street performers and uses Facebook’s live video
streaming tools to broadcast them to his followers. These unknown
artists suddenly have a platform to perform to hundreds of thousands
of people all over the world with an endorsement from Seal, who
sometimes even invites them to perform with him at his shows. If
these artists obsessed about the live video streaming technology, they
would miss the point. The reason they get an audience isn’t because
of the tools, it is because of their unique musical ability.
Your job as an entrepreneur is to create assets first and then look
for tools that can leverage them.
Gabriella Rosa runs a fertility clinic specialising in couples who
have been trying unsuccessfully to conceive for over two years. Her
business was once geographically limited to Sydney, Australia. For
many years, she was confined to dealing with patients who could
visit her in person. As hard as she tried, she wasn’t growing the
business of her dreams and couldn’t see an end in sight.
26 24 Assets
Like most small business owners, she was constantly on the

lookout for a breakthrough tool that would solve her problems. The
shift happened when she focused on asset creation rather than the
latest tools. She developed powerful video content, designed her
11-Pillars methodology and put it into posters, collated data and
documented her client case studies on video, produced better
products, scripted customer service responses and built her own
unique systems. These assets caused more people to discover her,
buy from her and work for her. Her dream clients showed up
because they saw content posted on Facebook, videos on YouTube
and emails full of rich information and data.
As her empire of assets took shape, her revenue doubled with
her staff headcount staying almost the same. She expanded
effortlessly into new territories and stopped needing to compete on
price – today she has clients across more than ten countries. It
wasn’t Facebook, YouTube, MailChimp and Infusionsoft that made
this result happen; it was the high quality of the digital assets that
were totally unique to her business.
Your business will not suddenly change (certainly not long-term)
because you’ve discovered a tool developed by another company.
When you have an ecosystem of assets, the tools suddenly become
useful. This book gives you a framework for developing your own
unique assets in 24 different categories.
The good news is that you are probably a lot closer than you
think to discovering valuable assets.
CHAPTER 3
ASSET CREATION
PASSIVE INCOME
I can’t count how many times I’ve had people tell me that their goal
is to create ‘passive income’. As the name suggests, it’s an idea that
you can earn income you don’t have to work for. It’s closely linked
with concepts like automation, auto-responders, distributors and
marketing funnels.
In my experience, it is also the most damaging wealth creation
idea I’ve ever come across. It sucks the life out of people and causes
them to waste their time, money and energy on stuff that doesn’t
produce results – the opposite of what they set out to do. I view the
idea as the modern day pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and
I believe it’s just as mythical.
28 24 Assets
Let me explain.
1. Passive income means you are trying to make money from

something you don’t want to be doing. I see people who aren’t
interested in property buying it because they think it will be ‘set
and forget’. I see people who loathe technology setting up websites
because they think their uninspired creation will earn them a wage.
I see people who have never taken an interest in large publicly
traded companies suddenly fixating on price charts so they won’t
have to worry about money someday. There is a deep fundamental
flaw in this logic.
2. Passive income stimulates the most primitive part of the brain. The
reptilian limbic system, the part of the brain that controls fear, fight
and flight, is a sucker for easy wins. It believes we live in a scarce
Chapter 3 – Asset Creation 29
world with drought around the corner. This primitive part of our
mind isn’t built for complex thinking; it can’t figure out that
spending 1,000 hours and £5,000 setting up an £87.60 per month
surplus is hardly time well spent. It just wants the emotional payoff
of never having to worry about money someday.
The worst thing is that when the limbic system is in control, the
creative parts of the brain, that do generate opportunities, can’t
function.
3. It’s not passive. What most people come to discover is that a

property portfolio is hardly passive, nor is a website or an MLM
downline. All of these so-called ‘passive-income’ vehicles require
maintenance and upkeep. Tenants cause dramas, websites need
updating and downlines require constant encouragement.
In reality, most passive income is actually differed income. When
you do the maths on how much unpaid work a person has to do
and the risks they have to take compared to the money they receive,
there is nothing passive about the income. It would be like an
employer asking staff to work for a year and then receive their pay
over the following five years.
4. I don’t see examples of it working. When was the last time you
bumped into a couple on holiday who proudly declared that they
were travelling non-stop thanks to their passive income?
Theoretically, every beach in the tropics should be overrun with
people who can’t even remember how they make their money.
So what does work? What is the alternative to passive income
that does produce results? What has been the secret to wealth since
the dawn of time?
30 24 Assets
Building credible assets.

Assets produce income. To get asset income, you must either create
assets (entrepreneurship), acquire them (wealth management) or be
given them (inheritance, etc.). If you’re not the owner of the assets,
you won’t be the beneficiary.
Using entrepreneurship as a strategy for building credible assets
is a legitimate way to create wealth, power, influence and fulfilment.
With your ecosystem of assets in place, things happen without you
being in the room – sales get made, rent comes in, fees are paid,
royalties are collected, but it isn’t passive.
An ecosystem of credible, strong assets is what I call an empire.
You can never turn your back on your empire; it will always be
something that you are building and protecting. If you’re not
leaning-in, sell the assets to someone who will care for them and
improve upon them.
People who get cited as the beneficiaries of passive income are
actually asset creators and empire builders. Richard Branson doesn’t
have passive income; he has the Virgin Empire with brand assets,
culture assets, unique products and funding capabilities. Warren
Buffet doesn’t sit back thinking about how great it is to have passive
income; he goes into his offices at Berkshire Hathaway each day
and builds his empire, looking for ways to develop his ecosystem
of unique assets.
When you have developed all 24 assets in this book to a
remarkable standard, you’ll have your own mini-empire.
The quest for passive income brings out the juvenile desire to
shirk financial responsibilities, get money sorted and get on with
life, and of course that never happens. Building an empire requires
you to run head-on at the challenges of money, business and work

in the knowledge that it will take time, energy, creativity and
diligence until all 24 assets are created to a high standard. The
empire builder chooses to play an inspiring game, because the game
will never be over as long as they have air in their lungs. It will be
the source of joy, frustration, passion, fury, boredom and
exhilaration.
The assets you create will take you deeper into your industry, not
remove you from it, so you’d better make sure you are building assets
in an industry you love.
ALCHEMY OR ADMINISTRATION
The most popular qualification for big business managers and leaders
is the coveted MBA (Masters of Business and Administration). In
this course, you learn the skills required to run a business successfully.
However, most MBA graduates don’t go off and start businesses.
They become executives for existing companies.
This is because ‘administration’ focuses on how to get the most
from existing assets, but not how to create these assets in the first
place.
The entrepreneurial journey is actually a journey of asset creation.
It requires you to start with nothing and conjure up something of
value and take it out to the world. This results in the creation of
assets that could be handed over to an MBA to optimise and
commercialise.
Entrepreneurship is alchemy – the process of starting with
nothing and creating something of value – whereas administration
is the process of starting with assets and making money from them.
32 24 Assets
This explains why so many entrepreneurs pour so much energy into

their business and get so little back in return – they confuse the
roles and either fail to create an asset or fail to commercialise what
they have.
To fast-track the process of developing assets, we want to explore
the seven predictable steps that allow the entrepreneur to move
forward. These milestones overlay the entrepreneur’s journey that
we discussed in the first chapter of Part 1.
Step 1: discovery of value. Every business must solve a problem in a

commercial way and stick around long enough to succeed over time.
Discovering value is finding the intersection of three ingredients
– something that others perceive as valuable, you enjoy doing and
is commercially viable.
Two out of three won’t do. If you love the work and others think
it’s valuable but they simply won’t pay you for it, you will feel
unrewarded and you will quit. If you are paid well and others find
it valuable but you don’t have any passion for it, you will feel
uninspired and you will quit. If you’re paid well and have a love for
the work but others don’t think what you do is of value, you will
feel unethical and you’ll quit.
When it comes to finding the intersection of value, passion and
a commercial approach, it’s best not to look at the extremes. Your
extreme passion is unlikely to be commercial (e.g. going on holiday
or spending time with your friends). The thing that pays you the
most is unlikely to be something you truly love. Whatever would
be of the highest service to others might not be all that fun or
rewarding to deliver. The real art is to blend ingredients of all these
things until you find where they meet.
The first hurdle to overcome is to find a problem or an unmet

desire that’s not being solved as well as it could be. For example,
people need to connect with their loved ones, and this need once
met by the telephone is now better solved by Facebook.
A classic error many entrepreneurs make is to assume that
because they would enjoy a service, there must be a need for it. I
see people setting-up ‘Gluten-free Retreats’ or ‘Landlord Advice
Memberships’ and putting enormous effort into creating all the bits
that would form the basis of a product or service before they try
actually selling their solution to others.
In reality, it’s quite easy to test if you’ve created value or not –
make a sale. The simplest approach is to get 10 targeted prospects
in a room, present them with an offer on a PowerPoint slide-deck
and see how many part with their credit card details. If two out of
ten people sign up for a £2,000 package, you’ve probably hit on
something of value and you can proceed to develop your product
or service to meet the need you’ve discovered.
Step 2: oversubscribed value. The UK Government has a test to see

if you have developed something of value. It’s called the ‘Value
Added Tax Threshold’ which is currently set at £83,000 a year.
Essentially, the Government believes that if your business is earning
under £83,000 (about £7,000 a month, ballpark US$10,000) then
you have yet to discover something of real value – you’re not ‘value
adding’. They treat you the same as someone who’s working – you’re
‘self-employed’. However, when you hit £83,000 in revenue, they
think of you as a value adder and tax you for it. This simple test is
a useful gauge for discovering if you’re on to a winner.
If one person can hit £83,000 in sales per year, there’s every
34 24 Assets
chance that a small dynamic team will each pull their weight and
average £7,000 monthly revenue per person (e.g. three people will
bring in £21,000+ per month). After you’ve proven the value of
what you can offer, the next step is to establish a small team of
people who can develop a ‘Key Person of Influence’ in the industry.
Step 3: gaining influence. Influence allows you to reach more people,

do business faster and charge a premium price because you are
known, liked and trusted in your industry. It relies upon your Key
Person of Influence embodying the vision and values of your business,
pitching powerfully and enrolling others into this vision. If an
influencer has a powerful message, the world becomes their oyster as
soon as they create digital assets such as content, media and products.
In the value steps, you might win clients based purely on price,
but that can’t last if you want to grow a business with even basic
overheads. With influence comes the power to attract talent and
partnerships that take the business further, and the type of clients
who don’t want to shop purely on price. Revenue per person jumps
when influence is present – you can double your revenue without
doubling your overheads.
To achieve influence, focus on developing and communicating

unique insights, and master the 5Ps of influence:
• Pitching: the ability to powerfully describe what you do and
• Publishing: the ability to write and distribute materials

why it’s valuable
• Products: the ability to deliver value consistently in a

about what you do and why it’s valuable
scalable way
• Profile: the ability to be known, liked and trusted in the eyes
• Partnerships: the ability to enrol other people and organisations

of your market
to cooperate in the implementation of your vision.
Please visit www.keypersonofinfluence.com

to learn more.
Step 4: oversubscribed influence. There comes a time when you start

to experience all the good ‘problems’ to have. You can’t keep up with
demand, your diary fills up months in advance and every booking
is a dream. You’re turning away high-value opportunities because
you simply don’t have the capacity to deal with them. You’ve figured
out your secret sauce and now there’s a queue forming for it.
At this point, formalise the assets of your business so that you
can scale up to meet this demand for more people in more places.
Step 5: formalisation of assets. This is about turning what you do

into a high-quality digital asset that can scale. If you are excellent
at telling stories, get those stories into a book, a video, a podcast
and a blog. If your team culture has a magic spark, codify what
causes it. If you have a gift for generating leads and sales, explore it
and document it.
A business that has digital assets can add people to its team and
know that revenue and profit will grow accordingly. Every person
on the team is enhanced and supported by the digital assets of the
business.
36 24 Assets
Step 6: oversubscribed assets. Digital assets give you the ability to

scale with greater ease, and growing numbers of people will have a
positive experience of your brand. You will get requests from people
to license your business, buy a franchise, resell your products, invest
in your shares or even buy the whole operation and give you an exit.
Step 7: commercialisation of assets. At this point, the ecosystem of

all 24 assets working in harmony creates a business that is highly
valuable – an asset in its own right. You can commercialise it by
enjoying the profitable cash flow it produces or by selling it at a
multiple of its profit.
Revenue per person
Apple earns US$2 million per person with 110,000+ employees.

Google has 60,000+ people and $67 billion in revenue, earning $1.2
million per person. Facebook earns US$1.4 million per person with
10,000+ people. Microsoft comes in at $785k per person and has
100,000 people.
A small consulting business I know has four people and bills £1
million – that’s £250k per person. Another team the same size does
£320K – or £80K per person. A celebrity I know has three staff and
earns an average of £1 million per person.
Revenue per person (RPP) is a pretty simple number to calculate.
It’s the total revenue or sales a company makes divided by the full-
time people working there.
If your business makes $10 million in sales and has 100 full-time
or equivalent people, you have $100k revenue per person. A
business that makes $10 million revenue with 50 people ($200k per
person) and one with 150 people making the same amount ($66k
per person) have very different futures. Both business owners can
boast about their eight-figure revenue, but the smaller team will be
hiring more people next year, while the bigger team is barely
keeping its head above water and will likely start to shrink.
RPP is a powerful indicator of success. If a business maintains a
high RPP, it can scale-up and hire great people quickly, grow
without much debt or investment, innovate, take risks and acquire
competitors. If a business has low RPP it’s fighting a difficult battle.
It can only afford to hire low-skilled workers, can’t take chances,
needs external investment or debt to grow, and a big mistake can
put it at risk. It’s like gravity constantly pulling the business down
and keeping it small.
RPP is the key to scale, profit, strength and agility. If you want
performance, with few exceptions you’ll need higher than average RPP.
Despite the obvious fact that RPP is correlated with growth,
profit and success, there are almost no books on the topic. Searching
Amazon for ‘Revenue Per Person’ gives you nothing but a few books
that reference the metrics. Therefore, for millions of business
owners, the secret to driving high RPP remains a mystery. Their
businesses stay small because they don’t know whether their RPP
is high or low.
If you search for the term ‘Revenue Per Employee’ in Google,
this definition pops up in a special box:
‘Revenue per employee is a measure of how efficiently a particular

company is utilising its employees. In general, relatively high revenue
per employee is a positive sign that suggests the company is finding
ways to squeeze more sales (revenue) out of each of its workers.’
38 24 Assets
How strange that even Google – a company that has itself

mastered high RPP – can’t find a good definition with all its powerful
algorithms. RPP is not a measure of how efficient employees are. It’s
not a way of squeezing more sales out of every worker.
Consider a highly-motivated team of lumberjacks with sharp
axes entering a tree-felling competition. The burly members of this
group are as trained, strong and motivated as any person could ever
hope to be. They compete against some low-skilled and barely
motivated teenagers who have industrial-strength chainsaws.
Who’s going to win the competition for the most trees felled per
person?
The motivated lumberjacks will pale in comparison to the teens
with chainsaws. The result has little to do with motivation or
squeezing performance out of every lumberjack – it has everything
to do with the chainsaws.
Now consider a motivated family running a local cafe. They
might be passionate, friendly, hard-working and well trained people,
but the business still won’t earn huge money. In the USA, the
typical coffee shop earns $60,500 revenue per employee.
Compare that with a team of bored, spotty teenagers working at
Starbucks armed with a global brand, a bulletproof system, diverse
products, better data and many other assets. Starbucks brings in an
average of $109,500 per employee. The assets earn an extra $50k
per person. What’s more, the average coffee shop makes a profit of
under $5,000 per person, whereas Starbucks is making profit of
$12,000 per person. Digital assets that scale create higher profit as
well as revenue.
If technology wasn’t moving at warp speed, employee motivation
or utilisation would probably be a leading factor in creating higher

than normal RPP. However, in a world where the sixth richest
person on earth started a company a decade ago in his dorm room,
revenue per person has more to do with technology, insights,
intellectual property and media. The fact that your competitor
might be earning twice the RPP as you doesn’t mean they have
doubly motivated people or they put twice the pressure on their
people to perform. Their people probably don’t work double-shifts
or have double the qualifications. It’s got more to do with the soft
assets that their business has developed. Their people have been
given chainsaws and your people are still swinging axes.
Revenue per person is a reflection of the assets your business has,
and to a lesser degree how well you’re sweating those assets. I would
assume that if you are reading a business book, you’re already
motivated and driven and you inspire those around you to lift their
game too. If that’s true, the key to your future growth isn’t about
even harder work, it’s about developing high quality assets.
CHAPTER 4
CHANGE
YOUR THINKING
PROFIT AND LOSS VS BALANCE SHEET THINKING
After interviewing thousands of business owners, I noticed that

small companies constantly focus on generating leads and
converting sales. Almost every conversation revolves around selling
more or saving money. An accountant would record this type of
activity as Profit and Loss, so I’ve come to recognise it as profit and
loss thinking.
Profit and loss thinking looks only at the income and the
outgoings of the business. It does not question whether you are in
the right business with the right assets. It assumes that everything
will be just fine if only you can make more sales at a higher price
while keeping overheads down.
Small business operators talk to me about whether I prefer
Google ads or SEO lead generation strategies. They ask me what
sales closing techniques I use or if I generate leads using LinkedIn
42 24 Assets
or Twitter. They ask me how to get cheap interns and virtual

assistants and how to cut down the cost of IT or HR. They want
shortcuts that lead to lower overheads and quicker sales; they look
for savings on suppliers.
Often they are unaware of fundamental flaws in their businesses.
Their product is commoditised, they mostly sell their time for
money, their value proposition is unclear and they aren’t positioned
as a leader in their field. For all of these reasons, the strategies that
might work for me probably won’t work for them, even if I give
them a point-by-point walk through of what my team does to drive
sales or reduce wastage.
Big businesses are different. In the boardrooms of large

companies, you won’t find many sales and marketing people at all,
and the conversations revolve around what I call ‘balance sheet
thinking’. The Board talks about accessing funding to develop new
products, opening up channel partners, securing a celebrity
Chapter 4 – Change Your Thinking 43
ambassador, opening new territories, filing patents, refreshing their

brand, disposing of an asset to free up cash, acquiring a competitor
or investing into a proprietary system that will give the business an
edge.
Balance sheet thinking is about understanding the mix of assets
and how they can be utilised. Profit and loss businesses ignore the
assets and simply look for ways to generate money selling what they
have – usually little more than time and expertise for a small
business.
If you want your business to grow, become profitable and be
robust, shift your mindset from profit and loss thinking to balance
sheet thinking. Talk to your team about the assets of the business
and go on a mission to create or improve those assets.
In this digital age, think about creating media, intellectual
property, data and technology as primary assets for your business.
These things probably won’t go on the actual balance sheet, but
they are the assets that allow you to win.
My business really took off when I shifted the majority of
conversations from profit and loss to balance sheet. I treated all
problems as ‘asset deficiencies’ rather than leads, sales or costs issues.
If I wanted more sales, I assumed that I must be missing the right
product, brand or channel, rather than simply thinking about how
I could talk to more people.
My instincts have now completely shifted. The old me would
never have spent money on a high-quality video production, a
brand guidelines document, proprietary technology or management
consultants to draft a business plan unless I could see an immediate
uplift in sales or decrease in costs. The new me is constantly looking
44 24 Assets
for ways to develop or acquire a new asset that will add value for
years. Rather than making a sales call, I will make a high quality
video that trains people about our sales approach. Rather than
spending more money on ads, I will spend it on improving our
products. Rather than negotiating hard for cheaper suppliers, I push
to work with the best suppliers I can afford.
In the short-term, this feels scary. In the long-term, the business
takes on a life of its own.
Hidden assets
Sometimes your most valuable assets are closer than you think. The
Mustad family in Norway has been manufacturing fishing tackle
for over 100 years. For several generations, the family business has
grown and transformed with trends and technology. Along the way,
there must have been years that were incredibly hard and times
when the family wasn’t sure if the business would survive.
Then one day a painting which had spent the best part of a century
hidden from sight was found up in the attic of the family home.
Experts identified it as the original Van Gogh ‘Sunset at
Montmajour’ that had been missing, worth an estimated $50 million.
How strange to think that many heated debates about money
must have occurred in the rooms directly under the painting. So
many times, the family would have asked the banks for finance and
turned down opportunities because the funding wasn’t there, and
all the while a $50 million paining was sitting above their heads!
I believe that you have hidden assets in your ‘attic’. In your brain
there are methodologies, stories, contacts, visions and values that
would make your business take flight. Sitting on your computer
hard-drive are documents, presentations and files just left lying

around.
I was guilty of ignoring these hidden assets too. Let me share my
story of how an email evolved into a multi-million dollar product.
In 2002, at the age of 21, I launched my first company with my
best mate Glen Carlson in Brisbane, Australia. I had discovered an
exciting training product with an eloquent speaker, who was its
creator. He was an older man and admitted he knew little about
the sales and marketing side to the business – he was presenting
his concepts to audiences of 10 people at a time. I knew Glen and
I could add the sales and marketing required to put this product in
front of hundreds of people.
I was right. We filled events with hundreds of people, the speaker
told his story and then we followed up with sales calls to sell the
training programmes. Within 12 months of launch we’d made over
$1 million in sales – we moved ourselves and the business into a
huge four-storey townhouse and were having lots of fun, working
fairly relaxed hours with a small team. I felt pretty good about being
an entrepreneur, full of enthusiasm and passion.
Over the next two years we expanded upon our success. The
formula was simple – I would attend poorly marketed events to see
if they were selling anything appealing, and then we would secure
a contract to get 10 times more people in the room and control the
sales process. Our team did event marketing, management and sales
for products that we thought were underexposed and poorly sold.
This winning formula became a national business in Australia,
generating over $10 million in sales in 2005. It then moved across
to the UK where it became a multi-million-pound success.
46 24 Assets
In 2008, the business was based in London and we had exclusive

contracts for products and services from Singapore and the USA.
We made millions in sales and split the money based on our
agreements with the overseas companies.
In 2009, the UK papers announced that the whole world was
on the verge of economic collapse. Troubles in the US housing
market had caused the failure of several institutions, and this had
impacted almost every bank and economy in the world. In turn,
this affected almost every small business in the world – our typical
buyers.
Within weeks we began to feel the pinch as people became
hyper-cautious about spending money. When one of the companies
we promoted refused to renegotiate their prices with us, we ended
the deal. The other company in Singapore couldn’t afford to pay us
some of the money they owed and we ended the deal with them
too. This left me with a business that had a dozen full-time staff
and no products to sell.
I was slow to fire any of the staff because they would have had
an impossible time getting jobs in a global recession. Very quickly,
I began burning cash, and only when things got really bad did I fire
them. I also cut back in my personal life so I could afford to pay
my business costs, moving from a penthouse apartment into my
sister’s spare room.
I went looking for products but couldn’t find anything I felt sure I
could sell, so instead I sought an exit. We had solid financials from
the year before and I figured someone might want to buy the
business for a bargain. I was living in a fantasy that if I could sell
the business, I would have enough breathing room to stop, think
and re-evaluate without the constant pressure of finding money for

overheads.
To my disappointment, the best offer I got was £300k for the
business. This was less than the previous year’s profit, and less than
a third of what I wanted, but I knew things weren’t improving any
time soon so I agreed to the deal.
On the day we were going to exchange the business for the
money, the buyer didn’t show up. That morning he had collapsed
and gone into hospital with high blood pressure – the deal was off.
I looked for answers on how to run a better business. Why was
my company so affected by the recession? Surely it was possible to
run a business that was more robust than this? How could it be so
dramatically impacted by the economy?
This lead me to a chance meeting with Darren Shirlaw, a fund-
manager turned business advisor. He looked at my financials and
told me immediately what was wrong.
‘You don’t own any assets’, he said.
The problem, he explained, was that the primary assets of my
business belonged to someone else. The products we sold and the
brands that mattered to our clients weren’t ours. He described us
as a ‘brokerage model’ business that did sales and marketing grunt
work for people who had business assets. In good economic times,
this wasn’t a problem because there was plenty of fat in the sale to
warrant our efforts, but in a recession, the market simply wouldn’t
tolerate it.
Brokerage businesses don’t sell for high prices compared to
businesses that have more defined assets. Essentially, my only asset
was a database of people who would open my emails. I had a small
48 24 Assets
brand, a sales process and some basic systems. All in all, it was
probably only worth the £300k I had been offered.
Income follows assets. So does stability. So does valuation. If I
wanted to build a better business, I would need to start developing
and owning assets.
When I went looking for intellectual property that I already
owned, I found an email template that I would send to people who
requested a speaking slot at our events. The email said, ‘We don’t
hire speakers, we hire Key People of Influence’ and it explained the
five things I looked for to establish more influence. This email
template became the basis for my first book, Key Person of Influence,
and the book became the basis for the Key Person of Influence
Accelerator. The Accelerator became the basis for a global training
business that offers a range of products and services.
What began in 2009 with an email template and an obsession

to develop business assets, was by 2011 a business worth £4 million;
by 2013 it was worth over £7.5 million; in 2016, I did a deal that
valued my business at just under £10 million. My first seven years
in business had produced something worth £300k and constant
highs and lows – I was a boom-buster and it was exhausting. My
second seven years created a mini-empire worth £10 million.
Despite those numbers, I have no desire to exit. The new feeling
of stability is only matched by the realisation of how scalable this
business is becoming. It feels solid, like a strong house.
The turning point was when I stopped looking for more income
and started looking for the hidden assets. Success wasn’t about
enthusiasm, motivation and a desire to succeed; it was about
creating an elegant ecosystem of assets.
Desire vs design thinking
Dream-boards, goal setting workshops, visualisation, pep-talks,

speakers, gurus and inspirational quotes seem to be the staple diet
of the ambitious person. The underlying message is that humans
lack motivation to succeed, or at least need reminding what they
are striving for. If these things are valuable it’s because desire is a
key ingredient in success and it must be enhanced and recreated as
often as possible.
Every top entrepreneur will talk about their desire to succeed,
but very few failed entrepreneurs get interviewed for magazines. If
you did interview the failing business owners (like I have), you
would discover they want success just as badly, if not more than the
top entrepreneurs.
50 24 Assets
Is desire important when it comes to success? Is it vital that you

really want something in order to get it? Is it necessary to visualise
success and conjure up an emotional storm?
To a degree, desire is important. It’s an easy argument to make
that you must know what you want if you’re going to get it; it’s not
terribly profound though. Far more valuable than desire is design.
We live in a world where successful outcomes are designed to occur
far more than they are desired into existence.
A 200-tonne plane takes off in flight because it was designed to;
the pilot doesn’t need a pep-talk to get it airborne. A Porsche 911
accelerates swiftly to 100km/h because of the engineering; the
passenger seat isn’t put there for a guru to stir the driver up. A 100-
storey building stays upright in a storm because of its architecture
and construction; it doesn’t require motivational quotes to reinforce
its structure.
These amazing feats of human innovation had something to do

with desire, but mostly it was the design that got the job done.
Imagine for a moment a cyclist wants to travel at 100km/h. This
particular cyclist doesn’t just desire this goal the way a normal person
might – they live and breathe it. They wake up in the morning and
fall asleep at night thinking of it. They have a dream-board and a
motivational guru; they read books that make them burn with the
passion to achieve. Sadly, however, they are blind to the fact that a
cycle is not designed to go at 100km/h. No amount of peddling, no
amount of training, no amount of wanting will get the job done.
On the flip side, my Nana Val, who is in her 80s, can comfortably
achieve 100km/h in her old Toyota. She doesn’t think too hard
about it, she doesn’t care all that much about it and she hasn’t
consciously asserted an ambition to do it. She just finds herself
travelling at speed along the highway because she puts her foot
down on the accelerator.
A business succeeds because it was designed to succeed. It is an
ecosystem of assets that have been developed and utilised efficiently
– a blend of intellectual property, capital, equipment, staff,
leadership and innovation. Each component is thought through,
improved, refined and enhanced. Each little insight is processed
and measured against a new level of output.
You are about to be introduced to a business design that works.
Once you know this design, you will be able to plan more
powerfully, invest your resources more wisely, diagnose specific
bottlenecks, fix them and grow rapidly. It will profoundly change
your entrepreneurial approach. Many people wish they’d known it
sooner; it would have saved them years of trial and error.
52 24 Assets
The 24 Assets approach took me years to discover. I sat with

thousands of business owners and engaged emotionally in their
struggles and frustrations. The blueprint emerged over the course
of hundreds of meetings solving problems and overcoming
obstacles with my clients.
This isn’t to say that all businesses are meant to succeed. For
some people, a huge benefit will be to discover that their business
must fundamentally change – they’re not on to a winner, and the
faster they shift, the faster they could be successful. I’m also not
saying that 24 Assets is only for people who are struggling. This
method has been helping healthy businesses to thrive too.
Successful entrepreneurs and their teams have used it to stay sharp,
better understand what’s working, focus during change and decide
how to make the most of what they’ve got.
No amount of desire on my part will get you to place a high value
on 24 Assets – it’s designed that way, so let’s begin.
PART 2
24 ASSETS
CHAPTER 5
24 ASSETS
OVERVIEW
This section outlines the 24 assets you will need in order to add
more value to and scale your business. It will be much more
useful and relevant to your business if you first complete the 24
Assets Heat Map. Visit: www.24Assets.com, complete the
questions and download your report. This will give you a
guideline as to the current quality of your ecosystem of digital
assets and you can start to strategise your way forward in
building your business.
There’s no one thing that creates a valuable business. Value is

created in the ecosystem of assets.
If you asked a Formula 1 racing team whether the engine, tyres,
body, fuel, sponsors or driver was most important, they would
probably say that you can’t win a race unless you have all of these
things. A successful Formula 1 team requires an ecosystem of assets,
not just one strong component.
56 24 Assets
In the same way, a business requires an ecosystem of assets all

functioning at a remarkable level to create maximum value. It is also
this that protects your business. Your competition might be able to
copy one or two elements of your business, but it’s really hard to copy
an entire ecosystem. Likewise, one or two elements might need to
be rebuilt from time to time, but it’s rare that the whole business fails
as a result when there’s an ecosystem of assets present.
Whether you intend to sell your company or not, it’s worth
playing a game called ‘build a company that someone would want
to buy’. This game ensures that you are building a business that’s
strong, robust, has potential and attracts the right people. Some of
my favourite companies are multigenerational family businesses like
Lego, Victorinox and Ermenegildo Zegna. These businesses are
still family owned, but could easily be sold for vast sums of money.
Broadly speaking, people want to buy companies that have a
good mixture of assets in seven categories:
Intellectual property. The business lays claim to, or is known for,

valuable ideas, methods or defensible intellectual property rights.
Brand assets. The business is known, liked and trusted by a loyal

group of fans who are unlikely to switch to a new brand.
Market assets. The business can sell products, disseminate ideas or

be present to a large group of potential buyers faster and more
cheaply than others in the same market.
Product assets. The business has created unique products and

services that are either difficult to replicate or difficult to compete
with.
Chapter 5 – 24 Assets Overview 57
Systems assets. The business has a set of systems and processes that
allow it to run more efficiently than its rivals while still delivering
the same or better quality.
Culture assets. The business is able to attract, retain, develop and

manage good people at a lower cost than its competitors.
Funding assets. The business is able to raise capital or borrow

money on better terms than its competitors.
There are 24 assets in total spread across the seven categories. In

each category, there are three or four key assets you can focus on
that will allow your business to stand out. Until now, this complex
blend of assets hasn’t really been codified in a way that
entrepreneurs and leaders can quickly digest and act upon. My
intention with 24 Assets is to give you a way to measure and improve
all the key areas of your ecosystem, bringing together the various
business disciplines into a single dashboard. I want to make scale
and value creation a fun game rather than a tangled mess.
This strategy is designed to overcome a few common problems
entrepreneurs face, giving you a way of organising the
overwhelming amount of advice that comes into your awareness
and prioritising what to improve in your business. It removes the
need for intuition about what to do next or the normal habit of
over-developing an area that you’re naturally good at.
As I outline each of the 24 assets, you will need to consider three
things.
Asset quality. What quality of assets do you currently have in each

category? A high quality asset is remarkable – it adds value and it
58 24 Assets
is easy to scale. A brochure is remarkable if people keep it to show

their business partner, spouse or friend. A report is remarkable if
someone posts a tweet encouraging people to read it. Your culture
is remarkable if your staff show their friends collateral from your
workplace and want them to apply for a job with you.
Assets add value if they pass the ‘90-day yachting test’. If you
went to sea for 90 days and had very little phone or email access,
such an asset would not fall apart. Instead it would keep making
the business function. If your videos on YouTube would keep
getting watched, the book you’ve written would keep getting sold,
websites you’ve launched would keep driving business and the
products you’ve created would keep delivering value for 90 days,
then you’ve got high quality assets.
An asset is scalable if it can move freely across distance. In the
times we live in, all assets must be able to be expressed digitally. If
you can email a file to someone and they immediately understand
and can reproduce the asset, then it’s scalable.
If your assets can’t be reproduced digitally, you won’t keep up
with the speed of change we are experiencing. When I have
examined some of the world’s fastest growing companies, I have
easily been able to find all 24 of their assets on their websites and
social media profiles.
A specific person (including you) cannot be an asset, but their
image, their videos, their audio recordings and their written content
can be. Something isn’t an asset if it’s described purely as a vibe or
instinctive way of doing things. It can be an asset if there are
handbooks, posters, guidelines, images, videos, audio files and the
like documented and easy to find.
Assets must also be scalable through time. They should be as

evergreen as possible so that they do not require reinvention at
every twist and turn. If you create videos that are only relevant to
specific news events, they will date quickly. If you create assets that
would have to change if you sold the business, you’ll never be able
to sell.
Desired outcome. What result are you looking for in your business:
lifestyle or performance?
If you want to go hiking to Everest Base Camp, you can go to
the local camping supplies store and purchase all the gear you’ll
need for a couple of thousand pounds. If you want to go to the
summit, you’ll need to order highly specialist gear for a lot more
money. To the undiscerning eye, it all looks much the same, and a
lot of the expensive gear seems pointless, but an experienced
mountaineer knows the difference could be life or death.
It’s the same in business. An experienced entrepreneur can take
a quick look at your business and assess whether you’ll hit your
desired goals or get stuck along the way.
If you want to build a lifestyle business you don’t need specialist
equipment. Most of the assets in this section can be created fairly
easily and cheaply if you know what you are focusing on. Industries
have evolved that offer powerful business tools for leveraging fairly
basic assets.
On the other hand, if you want to build a team of 50–250 people
and more than £10 million of revenue, you’ll need to invest a
disproportionate amount of money in the creation of your assets.
You can’t build a performance business using WordPress plugins,
videos you filmed on your iPhone and a brand a graphic design
60 24 Assets
student made for you. Performance businesses custom build assets

using award-winning suppliers who have an eye for detail and
experience executing a big strategy.
The business you desire to create drives the decisions you make
when developing your assets. It determines whether you customise
Infusionsoft, Salesforce or SAP as your database. It determines
whether you use KPMG as your accountant or a small firm that
specialises in Xero. It helps you decide on sponsoring industry
conferences or taking a holiday instead.
Improving the assets. What needs to happen so this asset category

contributes to your desired outcome?
When you’ve assessed the quality of each asset against the
desired outcome you’ve chosen, make choices about how to move
each of the assets forward to the level you want. In most cases this
will require you to select a quality supplier and brief them on what
you’re looking for, then manage the improvements of each asset
until you’re happy with it. After I’ve outlined the 24 assets, I will
go into more detail on how to approach the process of improving
them. I am a pragmatist, not an academic. My goal is not to give
you a complete deep-dive into each asset, but to give you talking
points to discuss with professional suppliers and advisors.
Your job as a business leader is to be in a position to get these
professionals helping you. Together you’ll build a valuable and
robust enterprise.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at the 24 Assets.
FUNDING ASSETS:
o n Structu
Valuati re
lan Risk M
Bus iness P itigatio
n
CULTURE ASSETS: Key People

of Influence
Marketing & Sales Mgmt & Admin Technicians
SYSTEMS ASSETS:
Marketing & Sales Mgmt & Admin Operations
PRODUCT ASSETS:
GIFTS PFP CORE PFC
MARKET ASSETS:
Position Channels Data
BRAND ASSETS:
Philosophy Identity Ambassadors
IP ASSETS:
Content Methodology Registered
Copyright of Dent Global. All rights reserved. Not for reuse. Registered UK Word Marks.
Get Your Personalised 24 Assets Heatmap

at www.24assets.com
CHAPTER 6
INTELLECTUAL
PROPERTY ASSETS
Being seen as different and special follows assets.

Today, fast-growth businesses run on intellectual property assets:
ideas that have been formalised into legally protectable property,
e.g. libraries of text, images, videos and audio files, code, algorithms
and methodologies that a business has devised. Mark Zuckerberg
joined the world’s top 10 richest people by the age of 30 because of
his ideas on how people network online. His assets are mostly
intangible – the vast data, patents, algorithms, trademarks and
registrations along with all the other digital assets that make up
Facebook.
These assets add value because they carry the essence of a
business’s uniqueness. A customer can read up on you, an employee
can learn your way of doing things, and key identifiers can remain
distinctively yours. They are also scalable because they fit seamlessly
into the digital universe.
64 24 Assets
You’re already standing on mountains of value when it comes to

intellectual property. You have a unique perspective, interesting
stories and powerful insights that could be transformed into assets
in three ways – content, methodologies and registered IP.
ASSET 1: CONTENT
Content is King in today’s digital world – text, images and multi-

media. The content you create differentiates you and allows people
to get to know your business.
Content clarifies your thinking – when you write an article,
record a video/audio or capture an image or a diagram, you are
forced to focus on what you want to share with your audience.
Content is scalable. Until recently, if you wrote a book, you
needed a publisher to green light it for distribution. If you recorded
a song, you needed a record label. If you had video, you needed a
TV station to appreciate it. Today, the minute you upload your
content, it’s freely available to a global audience of billions.
Content is cheap to produce. It wasn’t that long ago that video,
audio, publishing, photography and design were prohibitively
expensive. Only a big business would dare to create its own content,
and it would have been seen as wildly extravagant for that business
to have a multi-media studio in house. Today everyone has a multi-
media studio in their pocket. Even using external suppliers to
produce content for your business is cheaper than it’s ever been.
For many reasons, content is a business generation tool. Research
from Google (see the report called ‘Zero Moments of Truth’) shows
that people who have access to content are more likely to buy from
businesses or individuals that produce it. It’s a powerful tool for
Chapter 6 – Intellectual Property Assets 65
sales people to use during the process of winning clients. It’s

sharable – when you have a client who absolutely loves what you
do, the easiest and most wide reaching way for them to recommend
your business is to refer to your content.
You can encourage your team and even your customers to create
content for your business. If you curate a blog, podcast or YouTube
channel, content can be shared from a variety of sources.
Content can be repurposed easily as your business evolves. Your
blogs can be chunked up into a book or audio recording. A video
can be transcribed into a white paper, infographic or a slide
presentation. It can then be used in a myriad of ways – from
marketing campaigns to employee handbooks, the content finds its
way across the whole business.
Finally, it creates an archive of your work. When you publish
your content, it’s date-stamped and can be referenced at a later time
to show the evolution of your thinking on a topic. Many of the
world’s most admired businesses evolved out of articles, blogs, white
papers or media created by the founder. Twitter started out as a
series of blogs that connected its founders around common ideas.
Bitcoin began as a white paper on digital currency. What is now
Tesla Motors evolved from a masterplan blog written by Elon
Musk.
You don’t need to be JK Rowling or Steven Spielberg to create
content. It can be produced by companies like Rethink Press
(www.rethinkpress.com) that supply writers to work with you or
your team and capture interesting ideas to put into written content.
66 24 Assets
ASSET 2: METHODOLOGY
A methodology is a specific way of getting to an outcome. In a

business context, a powerful methodology is also a compelling
reason for people to engage with you. As you create content, your
methodologies will emerge.
When you are close to an industry, you often take for granted
how much you know. Many of the complex tasks you undertake
can easily be labelled intuitive. Dig a little deeper and you might
discover you can create methodologies that scale.
Sometimes a business will openly share its methodology with
the market as a way of cementing its uniqueness, and sometimes
the methodology will be kept secret so no one knows how the result
happens perfectly every time.
Google created its search algorithm methodology and kept it a
secret. Billions of people per day visit Google because they want
access to its methodology for finding information. They don’t know
how it works, but they want the results it produces.
My first book Key Person of Influence offered a five-step method
for becoming more visible, valuable and connected in your industry.
I openly shared the 5Ps with my readers so they could see how they
could get a result. Tens of thousands of people have come to my
events and become clients because they saw value in the
methodology.
Methodologies can often be expressed on posters using diagrams,
images, lists and algorithms. These can sometimes be coded into
software that reproduces the methodology automatically.
Challenge yourself and your team to sit down with large sheets
of paper or whiteboards and create your own unique methodologies.
My experience tells me that you will have your own recipes for all
sorts of outcomes, and it’s worth capturing them.
ASSET 3: REGISTERED INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY (IP)
Legally defensible intellectual property must be documented and

registered in order for your business to think of it as an asset. This
could include the basics of registering your business name as a
trademark with a government body. It could also include the
registration of URLs and social media profiles your business uses
on all the major platforms. Even if your business doesn’t currently
use social media platforms like Instagram or Snapchat, it’s worth
registering and setting up a basic profile so that if you decide to use
them later, you can. Registering IP requires you to find an
independent third party who keeps track of it and can help you to
68 24 Assets
defend it. At a more advanced level, it could involve filing for

patents and registering product names or slogans and certain
designs and images as trademarks.
A business like Nike owns all sorts of IP such as its name, its
logo, the words ‘Just Do It’ and the patented technology inside
some of its products. It also owns nike.com, justdoit.com,
airjordan.com and the URLs for social media like Facebook,
Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, Pinterest and LinkedIn.
When you use external suppliers to create content or
methodologies for your business, be sure to sign an Intellectual
Property Assignment Agreement with them so you are clear who
is the legal owner. This kind of agreement is recognised by the legal
profession if ever it is in dispute.
If you decide to sell your business, the acquirer will want to know
for sure that you own and can protect your business’s intellectual
property. They’d think twice about the sale if it emerged that your
name, URL or any other unique aspect of your business wasn’t
protected. They’d likely completely abandon the sale if they
discovered another business owned key components of your
intellectual property, as is sometimes the case.
To create and protect legally defensible intellectual property,
you’ll need to work with a specialist lawyer. I have personally
worked with the teams at Azrights (www.azrights.com) and at
Lawbite (www.lawbite.co.uk), and I rate both highly.
HOW DO YOU RATE YOURSELF?
Think about your business’s content, methodologies and registered

intellectual property. How do you rate? Are you confident that you
have enough high quality content in a digital format? Are you

proud of the unique methodologies you are associated with? Are
you secure in the knowledge that your intellectual property is
registered and protected?
For a lifestyle business, you can often create and register your
intellectual property cheaply and easily. I know many businesses
with over $1 million revenue which have videos, books and posters
that didn’t cost a fortune to create.
For a performance business, work with an excellent intellectual
property lawyer, a professional publisher, video production company,
IT and design firm to capture and protect your best ideas. Don’t
fool yourself into thinking that you can do all of this yourself to
save money; an investor or acquirer will give you a better valuation
if they know these assets were created by experienced professionals.
RAPID ACTION STEPS
1. Collate all your blogs and articles into one document

directory so they can be easily found and used.
2. Produce a professional report that showcases your ideas,
stories, diagrams and methods.
3. Create a shared folder in your company for capturing
images, video and audio files that can be used at a later date.
4. Register all your social media profiles even if you don’t
intend on using them yet.
5. Book an appointment with an IP Lawyer to discuss what
your business could potentially register and own.
70 24 Assets
WORDS FROM THE EXPERTS
Clive Rich is a barrister who’s done over £10 billion worth of deals
in the music and entertainment industry. He says:
‘Intellectual property is everywhere in your business and deserves to be

discovered, valued and protected. Your intellectual property could one
day be worth more to you than bricks and mortar. The internet is an
engine for scaling and commercialising your intellectual property
globally. Without intellectual property you’re a consumer on the web;
with intellectual property you’re able to build wealth.’
Shireen Smith is one of London’s most respected IP lawyers and the

author of Intellectual Property Revolution. She says:
‘Don’t underestimate the threat to your business if you do not protect

your intellectual property. Without knowing it, you could be infringing
on someone else’s rights and they may take action against you. In a short
space of time, your growing business could be slowed to a halt because
you didn’t consider your strategy for owning, protecting and defending
your ideas.’
CHAPTER 7
BRAND ASSETS
Being known, liked and trusted follows assets.

In a world full of choices for every product, and countless
unethical suppliers in every industry, a trusted brand has become
more valuable than ever.
Consider the impact of a brand on commoditised products. A
Victorinox Swiss Army Knife retails at around £50, whereas a
comparable multi-tool pocket-knife (the generic name for the
device) sells for around £10.
Underpants from Calvin Klein cost £25 for a pair, whereas
almost identical pants without a brand sell for £6 per pair.
An Apple iPad costs about £400, whereas a generic tablet PC
with the same specifications costs about £80.
72 24 Assets
A Fender Squire costs about £300, whereas a very similar electric

guitar without a brand name costs £60.
The brand that is most known in a category can charge four to
five times more for its product compared to an equally reliable
generic version of the same product. Brand helps you to add value
because consumers look for the cues that you are known, liked and
trusted, and they are happy to pay for that additional reliability. It
creates scale because you can show up all over the world as looking
ready for business if you’ve put thought into your brand.
To build brand assets, focus on three key areas: the philosophy,
the identity and the ambassadors of the brand.
ASSET 4: THE PHILOSOPHY
Behind every great brand is a philosophy that sets it apart. This

philosophy normally centres around the vision and values of the
company, which don’t often change and help to shape every decision.
Chapter 7 – Brand Assets 73
Microsoft famously had a vision to put a PC in every home and

on every desk in America. That vision attracted great employees,
secured big partnerships and impacted almost every decision the
company made in its first 25 years.
Companies that have strong values end up with more
empowered employees, more loyal customers and fewer stupid
decisions. They innovate more easily and customers understand
why the business is evolving.
A great example is the enduring Lego brand, which has a mission
to “inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow”. The values
include imagination, creativity, fun, learning, caring and quality.
This philosophy has driven decisions like creating computer driven
Lego robots that require children to learn how to code in order to
make the robot move. The philosophy also lead to major script
changes in the Lego movie to emphasise the joy of building and
the pride of creativity.
For your philosophy to be an asset it must be highly distinctive
and clearly documented. It must be distinctive in the sense that if
I spoke about your philosophy without mentioning your brand
name, people would quickly realise I was talking about you. For
example, if I asked you to think of a brand that ‘shakes up old
industries, champions customers and creates a fun place to work’,
you would almost certainly recognise that I’m describing Virgin.
At Dent, our core values are ‘be brave, have fun, make a dent’.
We put this philosophy all over our websites, materials and social
media. We make videos about it and discuss what these values mean
with our clients and customers. At our performance reviews, our
team members are scored on their levels of bravery, fun and impact.
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This philosophy is so distinctive at our company that if you do a

Google search for ‘be brave, have fun, make a dent’, you will get
pages of information about Dent Global.
If you want to look at a video about these three values, visit
www.dent.global/video-values.
Your brand needs to have documented values and a clear vision
that’s easy to find. Display your philosophy on your website, your
office walls, your packaging, within your employee handbooks and
all over your social media. It should be easy for your customers to
identify what you stand for and what you stand against.
ASSET 5: IDENTITY
The way your brand looks, feels, sounds, tastes, smells and behaves
on a consistent basis forms an identity in people’s minds. They then
trust the brand and expect it to continue to fit this identity.
Strangely, consistency is more important than the behaviour itself
– some brands can get away with being cheeky, irreverent and casual
while other brands would lose trust for the exact same behaviour.
A publicity stunt that would be normal for Virgin Atlantic would
seem strange for British Airways; if Virgin Atlantic delivered a
serious and understated service it wouldn’t seem on brand.
Consistency and repetition build a brand identity. I remember
hating the logo for the 2012 London Olympic Games. I could not
understand how it was the final choice from a city so rich in design
talent, and I wasn’t the only one. When the design was unveiled, it
was hammered hard in the press as a failure and many people
wanted it replaced.
To me it looked boxy, childish and poorly conceived, but the logo
stuck and it was emblazoned across a flood of T-shirts, posters,

billboards, newspaper ads and web banners. Pretty soon I hated it
less as it came to represent feelings of excitement, anticipation and
healthy competition, and by the time the Games came around, I
was proudly wearing the logo over my chest.
A businesses brand must maintain a distinctive identity across
all of its platforms. It should look and feel and behave the same on
social media, printed materials, websites, retail locations, events,
videos and the like. The most important thing when it comes to
the identity of a brand is that it is consistent.
Prior to my company being rebranded as Dent Global, we were
called ‘Entrevo’, a contraction of the words ‘Entrepreneur
Revolution’, and the logo was a mix of several colours and fonts.
However, the word Entrevo was difficult for people to say, spell or
remember, and even our staff continued to answer the phone with
‘Key Person of Influence’ (the name of our product).
To make matters worse, the logo we had chosen for our Key
Person of Influence product brand was in completely different
colours and fonts to the Entrevo brand. We had clever answers on
why we had decided to go down this path, but ultimately it was a
huge mess that needed fixing if we were going to successfully
launch new products and services associated with our brand.
I paid an award-winning branding expert several thousand
pounds to write a report on how to transform it. He said that we
should choose one font and two colours for the whole brand, avoid
colour-coding products and get rid of anything that caused
confusion. We renamed the business ‘Dent’ after the Steve Jobs
quote ‘An entrepreneur’s job is to go out and put a dent in the
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universe’, and settled for one font and two colours (Helvetica in
blue and red) that we use consistently everywhere.
We compiled this into a brand guidelines book (an asset) that
got distributed to our whole company and we made sure everything,
from our presentation slides to our websites and videos, matched
the brand guidelines. Our suppliers were given the brand guidelines
book and it allowed them to stay tightly on-brand with the work
being produced for us.
Within 12 months, people were using the brand Dent to
describe the company, and clients bought T-shirts displaying our
logo and put our ‘Be brave, have fun, make a dent’ stickers on their
computers and phones. We successfully launched three new
products and services under the brand and it all worked seamlessly.
Instagram had a detailed image of a leather-bound camera as
their logo for many years, then made the decision to simplify it.
The founder and CEO, Kevin Systrom, said, ‘We wanted a logo
that would look good on a billboard, a T-shirt, a website or an app,
and our original brand didn’t do that.’
He hired a design team that explained, ‘Every brand goes
through a migration from complex to simpler, simpler, simpler, to
iconic.’ The team at Instagram made the brave decision to
transform their look and feel dramatically so that it could be used
consistently everywhere.
Consistent beats clever when it comes to a brand. Of course a
brand should be intelligent and leverage the vision and values that
you’ve chosen, but if you have to choose between consistent and
recognisable versus clever and subtle, I’d go for the former. In a
complex world, simple colours, words and fonts used over and over
again are reassuring to your customers. With the exception of

Google, most of the strongest brands in the world use one font and
one or two colours consistently.
Once you get your brand identity right, stick to it. Remember
that long after you are sick of the way your brand looks, your market
will just be starting to notice you.
ASSET 6: AMBASSADORS
Trust, likability, notoriety and even fame can be transferred on to

your brand if you are associated with people who are already in
positions of influence.
In 1976, Nestlé Corporation launched an office coffee machine
that made strong coffee from a capsule system. For 30 years, this
small division grew slowly, gaining customers one at a time by
sending sales people out to office buildings to demonstrate the
product.
In 2005, the CEO of the division had a bold idea to turn this
coffee company into a globally recognised consumer brand that
would target a premium retail consumer market. They wanted it to
go from being a dull office coffee machine to a sexy, desirable home
kitchen appliance, and found the perfect face for it in George
Clooney. A sexy, desirable American with his home in Lake Como,
Italy was perfect to connect the affluent urban shopper with the
charm and sophistication of European coffee culture.
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With George Clooney as the face of the brand, Nespresso grew

rapidly and became one of the leading coffee brands in under a
decade. The power of the right ambassador can be transformational
for a brand.
You don’t need to be a multi-billion global conglomerate to take
advantage of this strategy. Your business could sponsor a local sports
team, you could host events with industry influencers or get a letter
of endorsement from an expert in your field. At every level of
business there are ways to align your brand to an ambassador who
can lift your profile or embody your values.
Rob Gardner decided to sponsor university rowing teams at
Oxford and Cambridge when Redington was a relatively small
business. He noted that when he was in an undergraduate rowing
team, he would look at brands like KPMG, Deloitte and Barclays
Bank advertising along the river, and think that they must be great
places to work.
Placing his business brand alongside those massive companies

yielded several great results. He has a steady stream of bright
graduates applying for jobs at his firm and powerful images from
competitions to use in his marketing materials, and he often
explains to clients that the values of his pension advisory firm are
reflected perfectly in competitive rowing (teamwork, timing,
balance and having perspective on the future and the past).
You can run events with brand ambassadors to galvanise their
impact. These events create photo opportunities, videos, podcasts
and other brand building materials that end up on your website and
social media profiles. A well-run event can have an uplifting effect
on your business for the six months leading up to it and the six
months after – one event can give you a year of benefits.
Ambassadors create value by embodying the philosophy of your
brand, and scale through their digital profile and social media
presence.
RAPID ACTION STEPS
1. Write down three of your unique philosophies about your

industry and publish them on your website.
2. Visit www.charitywater.org/media/ and explore the
philosophy and the identity of this unique brand.
3. Make a list of celebrities or teams you would love to sponsor
if money was no object.
4. Find ambassadors you can afford who embody your
philosophy.
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WORDS FROM THE EXPERTS
Mike Symes is the author of Light Your Firebrand and is responsible

for the brand strategy of some of the world’s biggest banks. He says:
‘ Your brand is an asset that you should build and cultivate with focus
and care. If you get it right, your brand can take you into new markets,
new territories and enable you to launch new products and
services. Over time, your brand will add to the overall worth of your
business. Small companies should think big about their brands from the
early days and then live and breathe those intentions with clear and
compelling value propositions. At any size of business, you should ignite
your brand, illuminate your points of difference and get your messages to
spread like wildfire.’
Paul Lindley built Ella’s Kitchen into a £50 million plus business in
under seven years, based on the brand values of ‘healthy, handy and
fun’. He says:
‘From day one we thought of Ella’s Kitchen as a brand that had to be

built. Whether it was customers, stockists or staff, we wanted to win
people over to our philosophy of healthy, handy and fun. We captured a
large share of the market because of the brand we built and, although
other companies tried to copy the product, they never achieved a brand
that was loved like ours. That gave us a huge advantage.’
CHAPTER 8
MARKET ASSETS
Having a strong foothold in your marketplace follows assets.

Owning a defensible place in the market is a powerful idea for
growing a solid business. There’s only one problem – there’s no such
thing as a market.
A market is an abstract concept that people selling something
like to imagine. If you are selling business-class plane tickets, you
imagine millions of business travellers. If you’re a life-coach, you
imagine a market of professional executives looking for ways to
improve their lot in life, with the money to pay for support.
As buyers, we do not think of ourselves as being part of a market.
We are individuals with personal needs, wants and criteria for
buying something. We don’t care how many other people are
looking to buy something similar or how much the aggregate spend
of all buyers will amount to in the year. All we care about is buying
from someone we know, like and trust who can adequately care for
our personal desires.
Therefore, the businesses that end up successfully ‘owning their
market’ are not the ones that imagine the large, nebulous mass of
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people out there looking to buy something, but those that recognise
the nuances and details that matter to each individual. Businesses
that treat customers like unique people and create something that
perfectly matches their needs are the ones that win the right to do
business with them. To achieve this at scale, you need to position
your business correctly in the eyes of your customers, have
convenient ways of reaching people, and data that allows you to
cater to people as individuals.
When a client is looking for the better/cheaper/faster provider,
your business wants to be the obvious choice, and this should be easy
to figure out. A customer shouldn’t have to work too hard. Avoid
doing anything that would damage your chances of being an obvious
choice to buy from. If you address a customer as ‘Dear Sir/Madam’,
you have immediately lost credibility as a company that cares about
them as an individual. If you are a ‘digital marketing expert’ with 122
Twitter followers, you are already on the back foot.
Having market assets allows you to communicate, sell products
and disseminate ideas to the right people quickly, powerfully and
at a lower cost than others in your industry. Your most valuable
market assets are positioning, channels and data.
ASSET 7: POSITIONING
Any effort to influence consumer perception or awareness of your

brand or product relative to competing brands or products is
referred to as positioning. Your objective is to occupy a clear, unique
and advantageous position in the mind of your potential buyers.
Your position in the market normally revolves around key
questions people ask before they make a purchase:
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• Who is the best quality (normally implying either durability
• Who is the most affordable (cheap or available on finance

or cutting edge features, depending on industry)?
• Who is the most convenient (either close in proximity or

terms)?
• Who is the most trusted or reliable (usually a long-standing

delivered rapidly to where you are)?
• Who is the most delightful (often associated with

brand with a track record of positive reviews)?
personalities or superior customer service)?
These aren’t the only ways to position your business, but these
classics are the most fiercely contested in every marketplace. Each
year, companies fight to demonstrate that they occupy one of these
top spots in their industry.
Additionally, companies now fight to position themselves within
categories that you might search on Google. For example, Google
itself does not want anyone else being known for the word ‘search’.
Nike may want to position itself with words like ‘run’, ‘athlete’ or
‘sports’, and will employ people to place its brand closely alongside
those terms. Some brands like McDonald’s want to avoid being
positioned alongside words like ‘fattening’ or ‘unhealthy’, and will
have teams of people whose job it is to ensure the brand stays away
from negative words.
An advanced strategy is to position a brand alongside a feeling.
Rolex wants its brand to evoke feelings of success, achievement and
pride. UBS wants to be known as the best private bank in the world,
and the front page of its website showcases all the awards it’s won
in that category. Coke overtly uses slogans like ‘Open Happiness’
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to slam home that it wants its brand of cola to be linked to positive

feelings.
There are four main ways to position yourself and generate an asset:
Awards. Businesses of all sizes can enter and win awards that
externally validate their position in the market. This can include
being featured on certain referenced lists and rankings (e.g. Industry
Top 20). An award is a powerful asset because every sales person
can use it in their conversations for years to come, and marketing
campaigns can reference you as an ‘award winning company’. It can
even add value to your business if you win highly-prized awards.
Accreditations. Externally recognised accreditations such as ISO,

CPD and Investors in People are indicators of quality or reliability.
It can be time-consuming and difficult to achieve an accreditation,
but it becomes a valuable positioning asset once you have achieved
it.
Associations. An association can take many forms, from being listed

as a preferred supplier to being a member of an industry group or
closely aligned to a bigger brand. If your business is a supplier to
Rolls Royce cars, it positions you in their league. If you are a Fellow
of the Institute of Cosmetic Surgeons, it would imply you’re more
credible than someone who isn’t (all things being equal). If I Google
‘best pizza in Notting Hill’ and you have a restaurant that occupies
the whole first page then I will happily assume you make the best
pizza in Notting Hill.
Acknowledgement. When a recognised authority in an industry

acknowledges a business publicly, it is a powerful asset. Being
featured in a high-quality publication, championed by an expert or

selected as a preferred supplier to a big brand gives you a stronger
position in the market. Be sure to capture these moments and use
them as assets. A client of mine had been endorsed by pop singer
Robbie Williams but hadn’t put it on the company website – a
wonderful moment can become an asset when it’s documented.
ASSET 8: CHANNELS
A channel to market, also known as a distribution channel, is the

way products, services or communications get to your customers.
Baroness Michelle Mone OBE built her lingerie business
Ultimo through channels to market. Starting with absolutely
nothing, she developed a unique push-up bra and dreamed of
getting it under the blouses of millions of women.
She first asked the question, ‘Who already sells to my market?’
The answer to that question led her from her small town near
Glasgow to the head office of Selfridges in London, where she
showed up unannounced and begged to pitch her product to the
head buyer of women’s wear.
With a small contract secured, she then asked, ‘Who already
talks to millions of women every day?’ The answer to that question
led her to a publicity stunt. With a dozen men dressed up as
cosmetic surgeons and a dozen women dressed in lingerie, she
staged a fake picket line in front of Selfridges where the surgeons
claimed they would go out of business if women were allowed to
wear the Ultimo bras. This stunt made national newspapers and
magazines, and put her brand in front of millions of women who
promptly bought up every piece of stock.
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Over the years, Michelle Mone has gained over £1 billion of free
publicity and over 1 million Twitter followers. With so many people
following her on social media, she has been able to launch a
multitude of products, services and events without having to ask
for anyone’s permission or involvement.
There are two types of channels:
Owned channels. These are channels that you develop yourself and
include all the ways you can reach your customers or sell something
directly. You own your YouTube channel, Twitter account, email list,
blog, podcast channel, events or retail stores.
Owned channels take a while to develop from scratch, but once
you have done this, you can choose how you will use them and they
can earn revenue in their own right. If you have 10,000 podcast
subscribers, you can probably charge a company to sponsor your
channel. If you have your own retail store, you can stock products
for others and earn money from their innovations.
Once you own your channels, you can add products, services or
messages to them whenever you like. Often this can be very lucrative.
Earned channels. These are channels that others have developed and
you can utilise if you prove yourself to be worthy. If you are seen as
a Key Person of Influence, you will often be asked to give an
interview on other people’s YouTube shows or speak at events that
put you in front of hundreds of perfect clients. If you can formalise
a large channel partner like Walmart, you might be set for life just
by managing that channel relationship.
For a small business, being featured on a prominent YouTube
channel or podcast can provide a steady stream of business. I was
featured on the YouTube channel London Real in 2015 and it has
provided a new client to my business every month ever since. When
I realised the longevity of online videos and podcasts, I made it a
goal to be featured on someone’s show at least once a month.
ASSET 9: DATA
Data is the key to personalisation, and personalisation is the key to

owning the relationship with someone. If you have a powerful data
collection and management approach, you can create personalised
relationships with millions of people en mass.
I was staring out of the window of a plane, waiting for it to taxi
down the runway and take flight, when a charming Cabin Crew
Assistant approached me and said, ‘Hi, Mr Priestley, thanks for
flying with us again. I’m wondering if you want to be moved into
an aisle seat as you usually prefer to sit on the aisle?’
My jaw almost hit the floor. As it turned out, when I’d checked-
in only window seats were available, but an aisle seat had become
vacant and the Cabin Crew member somehow knew my preferences.
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British Airways flies over 40 million passengers a year, so how

on earth did they manage to pull off this remarkable act of
customisation and anticipation? It turns out they have an internal
program called ‘Know Me’ which is a big data project designed to
highlight the wants and needs of frequent fliers. The more you
travel with British Airways, the more they can predict ways to
surprise and delight you. The more they surprise and delight
customers, the more those customers keep coming back and tell
their friends to do the same.
Data isn’t some boring, geeky set of dehumanising numbers; data
is the key to creating a highly personal and touching experience.
At Dent, we use scorecard tools to discover what type of
entrepreneurs we are dealing with. We know what frustrations are
occurring, the desires of each client and what we should be doing
to help them. Often people are quite shocked when we rapidly
predict and address problems that have existed for years in their
business. We can only achieve this because of the data we’ve
collected; any business that doesn’t have this data asset lacks insight
into their clients and prospects.
The more data your business collects from your customers, the
more you can customise and predict what your customers will want.
High quality data is a hugely valuable asset any business can
develop over time.
RAPID ACTION STEPS
1. Get featured through other people’s channels such as

podcasts, YouTube or blogs.
2. Win an award that indicates you are either the better, faster,
cheaper or the most loved in your industry niche.

3. Choose your top 50 clients and start a data-gathering
exercise on them, using their social media profiles to learn
as much as you possibly can about them – where they live,
what they love, how they feel on key issues, what frustrates
them, who they follow, etc.
4. Gather data that shows the impact of your business – what
measurable positive impact do you have on your clients?
What quantifiable negative impacts would happen if your
business disappeared?
5. Ask your prospects for at least 10 more points of
information about them so you can better meet their needs.
A WORD FROM AN EXPERT
Martyn Dawes built and sold Coffee Nation for over £60 million.
He says:
‘We achieved a lot of our growth through cultivating market assets. We

had a powerful channel partner strategy that led to us being in over
1,500 locations in under seven years. We positioned ourselves as the
only premium self-serve coffee in the UK and were featured in leading
publications for it. We also used data to show the impact of our product
in drawing new and engaged customers to their locations. I encourage
all businesses to build assets that position you powerfully, give you access
to your market and allow data to flow back to your business.’
Martyn Dawes
Founder of Coffee Nation and author of
Wake Up and Sell the Coffee
CHAPTER 9
PRODUCT ASSETS
Delivering consistent value to clients follows assets.

Most people think of a product as a set of physical items with some
packaging, like an iPhone in its box, a tube of toothpaste at the store,
a luxury pen in a special leather case or a stylish item of clothing in
a branded shopping bag. This is a simplistic view and overlooks the
key elements that really make up the value of a product.
Another way of looking at a product is to see it as a replaceable
and consistent way of achieving a desired outcome that your
customer wants. It could be delivered the same way in any number
of cities across the world at a comparable price point.
A product is more than its physical components. What makes a
bottle of champagne worth four times more than a bottle of
Prosecco? It’s not the bottle, the label, the bubbles or the cork.
Despite differences in the grapes and the production method, very
few people can tell you which product is which when given a blind
taste test. Champagne is, however, a different product to Prosecco
– champagne is a product people buy for an important celebration
and Prosecco is a product for less important occasions.
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Is a Hermès handbag really worth £10,000 more than a Louis

Vuitton bag? If so (and plenty of people think it is), what makes it
so? To the untrained eye, the bags are similar in design and quality;
to the person who’s owned several LV bags and has always aspired
to own a Hermès bag, the pull of the new brand is magnetic. She
imagines the reaction it will get from her friends when she casually
places this designer piece by her chair in an upmarket restaurant.
Products have a lot to do with non-physical elements – the brand
identity, the content that the buyer digests prior to purchase, the
positioning, the brand ambassadors and the customisation they’ve
felt. All the assets we’ve discussed up to this point set the scene for
what a product is really about – it is the perfect solution to the
frustrating problem all packaged up and made ready for sale.
I have several rules for creating a product:
Products have a name. The Air Jordan, the iPad, the X5, the
Stratocaster – a product really becomes a product when it has a
distinctive name that sums up all its various elements.
Products are complex packages. They have many suppliers who

make the result possible. The more complex the package, the less
likely it is to become commoditised. A Porsche 911 has over 2,500
suppliers, such as Bose (stereo) and Bridgestone (tyres), that deliver
all the elements of the car. They are then brought together in an
elegant package that appears to be one thing.
Products are distinctive and can be reproduced. Even when a product

is not a physical thing, it becomes a product when it can be
replicated in cities around the world. The stage musical Book of
Chapter 9 – Product Assets 93
Mormon follows the same direction with the same music, the same
script, and delivers the same experience to audiences in New York,
London, Chicago and Sydney. The cast and crew change, but the
product is still replicated effectively across the world.
Products have collateral. When you take all the elements that make
up a product, both intangible and tangible, and sum them up in a
brochure or a webpage, you have a unifying document that defines
that product. With a brochure, you can sell an item that has not yet
been manufactured, win a channel partnership pre-launch and get
preregistrations of interest. A brochure can travel with you in a
physical format or in a PDF on your iPad. It can turn mountains
of complexity into something that is simple and desirable for the
customer.
As a rule, anything that sells for over £1,000 should have a
physical brochure and a webpage that explains its value. Anything
that is under £1000, needs a website landing page at the very least.
Using these guidelines, you can build services like products.
When a service has a name, distinctive elements, a standardised
method of delivery and a brochure that describes it all in an elegant
and desirable way, it starts to appear like a product, and scale like
one too.
The product ecosystem. Having one product is not enough to make

a successful business. After working with thousands of businesses,
I’ve learned that a single product rarely makes money. Product
ecosystems make money.
Most small businesses make the mistake of having one core
product. Often, it’s their most expensive product, and it’s the only
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one they’re offering to customers. Accountants sell accounting;

lawyers sell legal services; plumbers sell plumbing.
But this isn’t how great businesses operate. Great businesses have
a product ecosystem with four types of product, including a range
of free, low-cost and core products that all serve a unique purpose.
ASSET 10: GIFTS
Gifts are exactly that: a product given totally freely with no strings
attached, primarily to capture attention. They are scalable, shareable
and affordable for your business to give without too much thought.
Usually they are digital and easy to distribute anywhere in the world
at very little cost.
Gifts need to be insightful, educational or entertaining,
highlighting the problems your business can solve, illuminating
your points of value and building an emotional connection. They
require no commitment from the person receiving them; a gift
ceases to be a gift when expectations are attached or if an exchange
is implied.
The ultimate gift-giver is Google, offering searches, maps, email,
browsers, storage, videos, research and many other digital products

completely free to the world. These products capture attention that
Google can then use to commercialise its other offerings.
You don’t need to be Google to give away gifts. You can create
reports, podcasts, videos, samples, events, slide-presentations or
apps that cost very little to give away once they’re developed. The
key is that you ask nothing in return – not even a name or an email
address. You just give the gifts away to anyone who wants them and
watch how quickly relationships progress.
ASSET 11: PRODUCT-FOR-PROSPECTS (P4P)
Once you’ve captured a prospect’s attention with a gift, a product-

for-prospects will usually be the first purchase a customer makes.
Products-for-prospects build trust, offer quick wins for a fair
exchange, typically requiring a small commitment of time, money
or data from your prospect. In return, you offer them a valuable first
step with your company.
Often a product-for-prospects helps to diagnose a problem that
your company can solve or narrow down the decision-making
process. A consultant might offer a diagnostic tool or an initial two-
hour workshop that hones in on the problems and possible
solutions for their client as a product-for-prospects. Google offers
businesses test campaigns to evaluate the impact of various
AdWords.
A product-for-prospects should set the scene for a powerful sales
conversation. If your sales people are talking to potential clients
who have experienced your product-for-prospects, they have
someone who’s already moving in the right direction.
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At Dent Global, our products-for-prospects include workshops,

scorecards, physical books, webinars, strategy-session meetings and
e-books.
ASSET 12: CORE PRODUCT
The core product of a business is its main source of revenue – the

product the business is typically known for. BMW’s core product
is cars. Google’s is AdWords. Mont Blanc’s is pens (or ‘writing
instruments’, as the company says).
The core product focuses on delivering remarkable value to a
client and is centred on solving a problem or satisfying a want fully.
Gifts and products-for-prospects tend to offer education or
entertainment to whet the appetite, whereas the core product
resolves the problem or satisfies the want.
It’s worth having the goal of being the best in the world at
delivering your core product. Unlike the gift and the product-for-
prospects, the core product requires a full commitment to delivering
a solution to problems that the client is looking to resolve. It is
implementation, not ideas; it’s a packaged solution, not a promise
of things to come.
At Dent Global, our core product is businesses accelerators. We
are the best in the world at what we do for the market we serve –
service led businesses with under 50 employees. We are not the best
accelerator for technology-led companies; Y Combinator occupies
that mantle. While most accelerators fight for 22-year-old
technology wunderkinds, we ignore that market and look for people
with 15+ years’ experience in a traditional industry.
ASSET 13: PRODUCTS FOR CLIENTS (P4C)
Products-for-clients are product extensions, taking customers even

further on their journey. A product-for-clients delivers a solution
that addresses the customer’s ongoing wants, needs and desires. It
is usually a recurring revenue product that provides value over time.
BMW sells its core product, cars, and then offers its products-
for-clients which are finance, insurance and servicing. Apple sells
its core product, devices linked to iCloud (iPhones, iPads, iMacs,
etc.), then its products-for-clients are things like media, storage,
software and music subscriptions that tick over every month.
At Dent Global, we offer business services to our clients such as
book publishing, digital transformation and video production. Our
clients want trusted suppliers who can implement change year-on-
year, and we have found those suppliers and brought them into our
services offering through either partnership or acquisition.
The ecosystem
It often appears that the most profitable products are products-for-

clients. When a financial analyst crunches the numbers on BMW,
they might think that there’s more profit in financial services than
there is in cars. This would be a foolish error because products-for-
clients only appear highly-profitable within the context of the
overall product ecosystem. BMW’s financial services are profitable
because it has a steady stream of luxury cars to finance without
having to run a single ad.
Products-for-clients downstream from all other products. The
costs of winning clients and running a business have been absorbed
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into those products, and now the only overheads associated with
them are the direct costs.
A financial analyst might question the logic of Dent Global
giving away £50k worth of books. In isolation, this would seem like
a waste; in the context of our product ecosystem, this is one of the
most profitable activities we do each year.
I often see businesses that do not become profitable until they
have products in all four categories. Only when it has a product
that gains attention, a product that builds trust, a product that
creates revenue and a product that is highly profitable will the
whole business work.
Between 1998 and 2013, Apple went from near bankruptcy to
the most successful company in the world. The success was closely
linked to the product ecosystem Steve Jobs innovated that moved
people from PC to Mac. He gave away iTunes as a gift to PC users,
the iPod became the ideal first Apple purchase (P4P), the core
business was computers and devices linked together with iCloud
and then the highly profitable content and media sales flowed from
there (P4C).
Keep this in mind when developing your business – products and
services don’t make money; product and service ecosystems make
money. Your business will become highly profitable when you have
a strong offering in each of the four categories.
RAPID ACTION STEPS
1. Create a brochure for your core product or service that fully

explains its features and benefits.
2. Add an additional element to your product package that
comes from another supplier, e.g. consulting can include an

online learning component that is already produced by
another provider.
3. Work with a supplier to create a digital gift product that
can be downloaded from your website, no strings attached,
e.g. an audio interview, a PDF report or an extended video
that adds value.
Nic Rixon built and sold a highly valuable product packaging

business. He then went on to grow a global team of business
coaches working with intellectual property. He says:
‘People don’t want your time and they don’t want your expertise, they
want a problem solved, they want a result and they want it better,
cheaper, faster and with more emotional benefits. They want it done
reliably, consistently and with very little effort on their part. Don’t fall
into the trap of thinking it’s about you – your product is about the person
buying and how they feel. When you really connect with what your
customers want – let me say that again, want – you’ll be able to create
products that have true value for them. People remember how they were
treated in the restaurant long after they have forgotten what they ate
or how much it cost.’
CHAPTER 10
SYSTEMS ASSETS
Predictability follows assets.

With systems assets, your business becomes simple, repeatable
and predictable to run. Great businesses do not inflict problems
and decisions on to their teams unnecessarily. If there’s already a
way of getting a result, repeat that way over and over again.
Systems take a few forms – documents like operations manuals,
scripts, spread sheets or slide-decks; checklists that break a big job
into lots of small steps; software that automates functions and
machines that move things around. Systems can also rely heavily
on media. You can create videos that train your team, animations
that explain complex ideas in a matter of minutes, or content that
helps your clients solve common problems themselves rather than
putting pressure on your call centre.
Amazon is the King of systems. It has pioneered game-changing
sales and marketing systems such as one-click, affiliate portals,
Amazon recommendations, and more recently the speech
recognition assistant Alexa that is always listening to your
conversations for clues on what you might buy. Amazon’s
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warehouse crawls with automated activity as robots race around

moving products to the dispatch centre. The systems are so
powerful that many customers are stunned when their purchase
arrives in under 24 hours after being ordered.
Amazon has hundreds of thousands of affiliates recommending
products in exchange for a commission. Its affiliate system
automatically knows how much commission to allocate, compiling
a report and issuing the payments with very little human oversight.
Your business, although a lot smaller than Amazon, can punch
above its weight with carefully crafted systems. We live in a time
where venture capital has backed thousands of companies to build
useful systems for small businesses to subscribe to at little or no
cost. There are systems for running teams, shipping products,
collecting payments, managing enquires, resolving complaints and
just about anything else your business might need. The baseplate
of these systems has already been created, and you only need to
customise them for your needs and string them together to do as
much as they possibly can. Then you’ll save an enormous cost in
development but still reap all the benefits.
It’s expensive and difficult to create a fully automated end-to-
end system. Instead, make it your goal to use technology and
systems to do the heavy-lifting for your business. If you tried to
fully automate a business, the costs and creativity would make the
task almost impossible, but technology with human oversight is a
powerful combination that anyone can afford.
Chapter 10 – Systems Assets 103
There are three areas to focus your attention on in systems:
ASSET 14: MARKETING AND SALES SYSTEMS
To drive leads, sales and referrals to your business at scale, you need
strong systems. Firstly, you need a system that puts your message
in front of the right people. This could be based around targeted
Facebook ads, SEO optimised content, Google retargeted ads or
any number of great tools that provide targeting. Your system could
be based on affiliate systems or tested email marketing campaigns.
Some businesses rely upon a system of selecting the right retail
space that guarantees them a steady flow of prospects.
The important assets you’ll need to plug in are images, marketing
copy, video, audio and the targeting criteria. You know you have
good lead generation systems when it would be hard to stop the
leads flooding in. At Dent Global, we combine a blend of content
distribution, ads, social-media, affiliate marketing and opt-in pages.
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The result is a steady flow of 300–500 data rich leads every week
hitting our database, and it would be difficult for us to turn it off.
The key is for you to combine your content, brand, data,
products-for-prospects and other assets to innovate a system of
marketing that suits you and generates a steady flow of business.
The system isn’t only about generating interest; you need to carry
it all the way through to a sale. When prospective clients show
interest, your system typically needs to allocate the lead to a sales
person whom it arms with as much information as possible for
them to have a sensible conversation with the lead. Involve the use
of scripts and other sales aides in your system to make your sales
people more effective.
When a customer buys, your system should ‘on-board the client’
so they feel great about their decision. Maybe it could send an email
or some video content for them to watch; maybe it could send a
welcome pack to their office or instruct your team to make time to
meet with them. Make it part of your overall system to have reviews
of your sales and marketing systems if ever your cost per lead
exceeds a predetermined amount or your sales conversions fall
below a certain point.
ASSET 15: MANAGEMENT AND ADMINISTRATION SYSTEMS
One of the most destructive things a team can do is focus too much
energy on administration and management tasks that don’t add
value directly to the customers or future acquirers. If a sales person
takes a day to collate her results and compile a report so that she
can get paid her commissions, that costs the company and the sales
person in missed opportunities. It should not take a long time to
pay suppliers, collect money from clients, keep receipts or determine

tax obligations. It should not be hard for team members to
communicate and file important records.
A management and administration system needs to be able to
report accurately what has happened in the past, forecast what the
business expects to achieve in the future and provide useful
information for making decisions in the moment.
A key asset is a dashboard that allows the team to see how the
business is performing. Carefully select some of the metrics that
drive performance and make sure they show up prominently on
your dashboard. You might select metrics like cash at bank,
payments collected, expected invoices, revenue per employee or
monthly users; the general rule is that whatever you measure will
improve.
Over the last 10 years, management and administration systems
for small to medium businesses have had billions of dollars invested
in their creation too. Industries of consultants who can support a
business to set up, customise and improve these systems have
emerged beside the software. Both the software and the support
services have become affordable and usually only involve monthly
subscriptions and small retainers.
As you blend all these services to find an overall solution that’s
right for you, keep a document that explains how they fit together
in your business. Imagine that a new employee could join your
team, read only this document, download the apps and fit in almost
straight away.
Services like Xero, Receipt Bank, Lawbite, Slack, Trello, Evernote,
Dropbox, Zoom, GoTo Webinar, Office360, Google Docs,
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MailChimp, Skype, Docusign, Scannable and many others can be

considered must-haves for your business. Literally billions have been
invested into their creation, and often you can get them for free.
Your business needs to ensure it keeps these systems updated
with the relevant inputs so they can keep producing valuable
insights and reports.
ASSET 16: OPERATIONS SYSTEMS
In this context, ‘operations systems’ refers to any system that ensures

your customers get what they paid for in a predictable and
delightful manner.
The absolute key to being successful long-term in business is to
deliver remarkable value and surprise and delight your customers
beyond their expectations. If you get this right, your customers
become your marketing department and it’s hard to keep up with
the demand that is generated from their positive comments.
Uber grew to one of the word’s largest transportation companies
in under a decade without spending much money on advertising.
It achieved this result because its operational systems are
breathtakingly superior to anything that went before them.
The first time I used an Uber, its powerful system shocked me.
I could see cars circling a few blocks away, and in a couple of clicks
I had a car on its way and an accurate prediction of its arrival time.
Without needing to talk to the driver, I was whisked to my
destination and the payment was processed automatically. This
seamless experience led hundreds of early users to tell thousands
of their friends, and eventually those people told millions more
people to get signed up.
How could your business be a little bit more asset driven when
it comes to delivering value to your clients? Consider how your
business could use video, apps, direct mail or events. Look for the
systems that would make it predictable that your customers felt
loved and appreciated by your brand.
At Dent we support our clients with a learning management
system full of videos, checklists, activities and other resources. This
system underpins and supports us in delivering value to clients. We
don’t expect this system to be the complete solution to every
problem our clients may face, but we know it helps a lot.
It’s also worth considering the assets you can share with your
suppliers who help create the customer experience. In the same way
as your company puts effort into on-boarding and managing staff,
you can create on-boarding documents for your suppliers that
explain how important they are and how best they can add value.
It doesn’t end there: you can also recognise their efforts with awards,
thank you cards or referrals – all of this can be part organised into
systems and documents.
You aren’t necessarily striving for end-to-end automation that
delivers everything to a client. Your people may still be involved in
delivering the special touch, but ensure they aren’t distracted doing
things that could be done with a well-constructed operations
system. With the right assets, the customer experience can be
remarkable every time.
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RAPID ACTION STEPS
1. Set up a highly targeted Facebook ad that you can let run

for 12 weeks at a time to produce quality leads consistently
at an acceptable price.
2. Generate an automatic monthly report that lets your team
know how it performed for the month.
3. Systemise an email sequence that every new client gets to
make them feel really happy to be doing business with you.
A word from an expert
Marianne Page spent 20+ years in a leadership role with

McDonald’s, developing both systems and the high performing
teams to run them. She says:
‘Systems aren’t there to replace people, they are there to make life easier
– your team’s, your customers’, yours. With the right systems in place
your team can perform to their absolute best, and take ownership for
what they do every day. Whatever you might think of McDonald’s or
their food, you can’t help but be impressed by their ability to take a
moody 16-year-old, who wouldn’t dream of washing a dish or tidying
their room at home, and turn them into a productive and positive team
member within weeks – preparing food, handling money, working
with suppliers and solving problems at a world-class level, with many
going on to run multi-million dollar restaurants. Systems are
McDonald’s secret ingredient – and should be one of the key ingredients
for every successful business owner looking to scale, franchise or sell their
business.’
CHAPTER 11
CULTURE ASSETS
High performing teams follow assets.

The true test of culture is your ability to attract, develop and
retain highly skilled employees without paying above the odds for
them. It’s unlikely that someone will quit their well-paid, secure
job for a lower paid position on your fledgling team unless there’s
something special going on – the flexible hours, the training or
mentoring programme, the flat structure and open dynamic of your
team, or the vision and values held by your organisation. All these
magical ingredients make up the culture, and in order to scale them,
carefully document them. You need the basics like job descriptions,
accountability charts and workplace contracts alongside investment
into advanced assets such as videos that explain the vision and
values, on-boarding programmes, performance reviews and bonus
structures.
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For a small business, it’s unlikely that you will attract high
performing people at all. They already have top-paying jobs at
exciting companies, so unless you’re willing to give away large
chunks of equity or offer some other radical benefit, you’re simply
not going to get them to leave their great jobs.
This means your viable options are either to start with passionate
young people who need training and development or to hire people
who need a lot more flexibility than the corporate world will offer
(e.g. parents, remote workers, disabled workers, etc.). Your small
business will need assets that train, develop and cater for these
people. To the degree that you can document and formalise these
assets, you will be able to attract an endless stream of great people
on to your team. More importantly, you will keep up with the
hiring, on-boarding and management of your expanding team.
As a team grows, the complexity grows exponentially. A team of
eight people has over 100 possible variations of who could be in a
meeting room. When you hit 50 people, the permutations and
Chapter 11 – Culture Assets 111
combinations run into the tens of thousands. It’s a common

experience for founders who grow a company from 0 to 50 people
to discover staff who have been working at the company for weeks
before they meet them. It’s also common to discover in a team of
50 that there are romantic relationships blossoming, people who
strongly dislike each other, informal sub-committees meeting
regularly and groups who are discussing leaving the organisation
to form a business together. Without a well-crafted set of culture
assets, all this complexity mounts into an unholy mess and the
company can implode.
The ultimate success is to create assets that attract, retain,
develop and manage people who are better than the founder – the
ability to hire ‘overlings’ rather than underlings in every role. Only
great assets will allow that to happen.
Key culture assets are:
•
•
Documented role descriptions
•
Accountability/organisation chart
•
On-boarding process
•
Team handbook
•
Training videos
•
Structured performance reviews
•
Ongoing training and development programmes
•
Remuneration and rewards structure
•
Disciplinary and complaints policy
•
Flexibility policy
•
Communications tools, maxims and decision making guides
Key performance indicators
112 24 Assets
There are essentially four types of people you’ll need to attract on

to your team:
ASSET 17: KEY PEOPLE OF INFLUENCE
Key People of Influence are the leaders, figureheads and rainmakers

who can do deals, open partnerships, lead teams, liaise with media,
inspire, innovate and represent the brand. They will solve problems,
attract A-players and grow the business faster than the founder
could.
Richard Branson is known, liked and trusted globally as a
billionaire who’s built Virgin into one of the world’s most recognisable
brands. His ability to hire top CEOs to lead the various divisions of
the Virgin Group is legendary. Regularly senior executives will leave
stable, high-paying jobs for the opportunity to work alongside
Branson, and in many cases they take a pay-cut to do so.
Businesses that have Key People of Influence outperform those
that don’t. The assets that attract Key People of Influence are often
the assets that exist within the business – a world-class product,
exceptional intellectual property, strong systems, ample funding or
a powerful position in the market. Additionally, they look for a
culture that will help them to attract other A-players.
One asset I recommend is to write and publish a book. This is a
powerful asset for attracting clients, but even more powerful at
attracting great people on to your team. Sir Richard Branson has
said that his recent business books were written as culture
documents for the 60,000 people who work at Virgin more than
the general public. Many of these 60,000 people first fell in love
with the brand when they read a book like Screw It, Let’s Do It.
ASSET 18: SALES AND MARKETING
Dynamic sales and marketing people are sought after in most

companies. They bring in a steady stream of prospects, qualify them,
warm them up, present the right products and services, expand
opportunities, collect testimonials and land money into the bank
account.
In the marketing role, there tend to be two types of people. The
first is highly creative and loves the words and imagery that get
people to engage. The second type is someone who has a deep love
of data, measurement, testing and statistics. The ultimate aim is to
combine the two types. They’ll then place stunning ads, measure
results and improve rapidly.
When it comes to sales people, they normally fit into the camp
of being either a ‘hunter’ or a ‘farmer’. Hunters go aggressively after
new business. They are charming, warm and exuberant and aren’t
afraid to ask tough questions, get playful and close a sale on the
spot. Farmers are nurturers who take longer to foster relationships
and attend to people’s needs. They are diligent, detail-orientated
and methodical in their approach. Farmers are much more likely
to perform well in roles that require a long-term relationship to
develop over many years. Hunters are much more likely to come
back to the office with a big initial order from a new client, but they
aren’t as good at following up every month to build the relationship.
Sales and marketing people leverage the other assets like content,
data, branding and great products in order to succeed. Even the
best people can’t sell a second rate product with a dull brand.
Having great assets in your company – powerful ads, landing pages,
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videos, case studies – will attract top performers in the sales and
marketing roles, but you also need to create assets that are specific
to developing these people. You’ll need assets that quickly test if
they’re a good fit with the values and chemistry of others on the
team. Develop assets that make the first 90 days of work a
memorable experience that sets people up for a great five years.
Some of these assets we have at Dent Global are videos about
our vision and values, team handbooks, training providers our team
can use, recordings of successful sales calls, reports on successful
marketing campaigns and online forums to discuss challenges and
opportunities in real-time.
ASSET 19: MANAGEMENT AND ADMINISTRATION
A great manager translates the vision of the leader into small,

actionable steps, delegates responsibilities, measures performance,
generates reports and ensures the smooth internal operations of the
business.
Administrators are able to stay finely attuned to the financials
and forecasting of the business. They know if the business is
heading for a cash flow shortage and they seek out financial
solutions. They don’t let money slip through the cracks or important
paperwork go missing. They stay on top of bad payers, managing
expectations and relationships with suppliers. Good managers and
administration staff empower the business to run as effectively as
possible, making adjustments and improvements while adhering to
budgets.
It’s common for managers and administrators to feel
disconnected from a high-performance team because often their
work isn’t as easy to measure as sales and marketing, and customers

rarely rave about them. Treat your administration team as the
enablers of high performance who ensure that resources are
allocated optimally. It’s important that your culture assets
acknowledge the role they play and showcase examples of high-
performance in that role.
Capturing case studies is a powerful approach for creating culture
assets. When someone does something that really benefits the
organisation and is aligned to its values and the vision, make it a
priority to record a video interview about that achievement. This
could be as simple as using a phone and shooting an interview to
share with the team (and new team members who join).
One of the decisions we made at Dent was to encourage our
managers and administrators to create and capture assets for the
business. We have trained the team in the 24 Assets method and
everyone is on the lookout for potential assets that can cement our
culture.
ASSET 20: TECHNICIANS
Every business exists to solve problems for clients. For that to

happen, every business needs people who have technical skills that
relate to value delivery. A hair salon needs hairdressers, a digital
agency needs designers, a training company needs facilitators, a
dental clinic needs nurses, and so on.
Technical people build the products and deliver the services your
business offers. Google has an army of coders who constantly
improve its products. A tourist using Google Maps may never meet
the engineers who built the platform, but they judge Google by
116 24 Assets
how well it works. If Google doesn’t have great technical people,

its products suffer and it loses its position as a market leader.
Increasingly, the success of the customer experience relies upon
the exceptional technicians who can deliver it. Reliable, dedicated,
passionate, technically skilled people are vital for the long-term
success of the business. Never underestimate the value of great
technical ability in your organisation. People might discover your
company through sales and marketing, but they will stay with you
because of the technical capability you demonstrate.
Your technicians need assets that develop and maximise their
skills. They need world-class tools, the ability to focus on important
tasks without disruption, training and time to think or recharge.
Technical people thrive in environments where they learn and grow
with other skilled technicians. It’s powerful to encourage them to
collaborate, share and learn together as part of their role, and
capture some of their best insights to put into a report that new
members of the team can learn from.
Technicians also need to feel that if they create an asset that
produces a huge efficiency, they won’t do themselves out of a job.
Sometimes technical people have ideas that could make their
current role redundant and keep quiet about them for fear of being
fired after the new system is in place. Be very clear that asset
creation makes technicians more valuable to the company, not less
valuable.
Quick tip: don’t use the word ‘staff ’ or ‘employees’ if you want a
high-performance team. Can you imagine a professional basketball
team referring to its players as employees or staff ? Find a term for
your people that reflects the level of performance you expect from
them. I believe there is no such thing as an entrepreneur, there are

only entrepreneurial teams. Mark Zuckerberg would not be seen
as a top entrepreneur without the people who work at Facebook.
Create an entrepreneurial team by honouring the entrepreneurial
spirit in every person in the company.
RAPID ACTION STEPS
1. Create a video for new employees to watch that will explain

the vision and values of the company.
2. Have a weekly meeting that everyone feels adds massive
value. Each person can cover what they are working on,
what they’re struggling with and how they’re measuring
success for the week ahead.
3. Write a description for the key roles in your company that
clearly sets out what success looks like.
Julia Langkraehr built a retail business in over 1,000 locations across

the UK, Germany and the rest of Europe. After successfully exiting,
she formed the consultancy Bold Clarity to help companies build
strong teams. She says:
‘Culture is often confused with having free food, beanbags and office
dogs. High-performance culture has a lot more to do with the way the
team interacts, the quality of people who stay, the quality of people who
leave and the clarity each person has for their role. Culture assets are
working when your team stays together and produces output that
exceeds expectations. I want to see a culture where the big picture goals
118 24 Assets
are clear to everyone. I want to see a team that can identify issues,
discuss them and solve them. I want to see a culture where the team
chooses the right goals and achieves them every 90 days. When that’s
happening consistently, you’ve got the right culture assets in place.”‘
CHAPTER 12
FUNDING ASSETS
Accessing funding for your business follows assets.

Your funding assets are the key to your business accessing money
to develop your assets further. If you have the rights assets in place,
it’s easy to get funding. If you’re buying a house, the bank wants
independently produced documents – payslips from an employer;
a building inspection from a certified builder; a report from a
quantity surveyor. If you can show the bank all these documents,
they will likely lend you the money to purchase the house. It’s the
same for other assets like shares, art, bonds or land. Lenders or
investors want to see documentation to prove the asset’s value, the
ownership structure and the serviceability.
Likewise, if your business needs funding, you’ll need to show
some independently produced documentation to an investor. But
for some strange reason, many startups don’t produce
documentation from top independent providers. They show a
business plan they wrote themselves, a valuation they made up and
some random slides about their ideas for the future. Then they
wonder why they can’t get funding.
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With high-quality, independently produced funding assets you

can access investment or lending on good terms and you can use
that funding to build out the other assets in your business.
To access funding in a business, we need the following
documentation assets:
ASSET 21: BUSINESS PLAN
Your Business Plan clearly defines where the business is heading,

the challenges it will face, the risks it will reduce, the opportunities
it will develop and the returns you expect. If you’re building a
lifestyle boutique, you might be able to use a Business Plan
template to sense check your thinking and map your future. You
can then work with your accountant to improve the plan before
seeking a loan from the bank or an investor. If you’re building a
performance business, though, it’s imperative that you commission
an independent Business Plan from a reputable advisory firm. Your
investors are less likely to question the assumptions in your Business
Plan if a professional created it.
Investors can tell straight away when a Business Plan has been
created by an entrepreneur. It’s like someone designing their own
architectural plans to build a house – the engineers would take one
look and know they’d not been professionally produced.
Furthermore, when a plan has a stamp from a respected firm,
investors trust that everything will be in order. Large companies
spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to get the likes of Boston
Consulting to produce Business Plans not because they can’t do it
themselves, but because there’s more value in having a reputable
firm involved.
Chapter 12 – Funding Assets 121
You may wonder how a Business Plan can be created by a

professional without your involvement – it isn’t. They will
interview you extensively and prepare the Business Plan based on
all the information you share with them and add their own
objective perspective. Some people may ask why the business
planning company doesn’t steal your ideas. These firms
understand that the plan is only as good as its execution and
therefore they stick to what they do best, letting you do your best
to implement your plan.
If an investor likes the look of the Business Plan, they will need
to know the terms of the investment. They’ll want to see how
much you’re raising, what percentage that will get them, how the
funds will be used and when they’ll get their money back with a
return. This is documented in an Investor Memorandum. Once
again, particularly for a performance business, this should not be
produced by the entrepreneur. It must be done by a professional
advisor. Additionally, an investor will want to see the
Shareholders’/Lenders’ Agreement so they know what to expect
legally while they are an investor. The other document that is
important to investors is the Capitalisation Table (or Cap Table
for short) which shows the existing shareholders of the company
and the number of shares they hold.
ASSET 22: VALUATION
Harvard Business School identifies dozens of valid ways to arrive

at a company valuation –future cash flows; the likely sale price
minus a discount based on the time until liquidity; comparable
prices for similar business sales; the costs to set up the company
122 24 Assets
again; the strategic value of preventing a competitor from owning

it. The list goes on and on.
When it boils down to the reality of valuation, a company is
worth whatever people are willing to pay for it. One thing, however,
is a sure-fire way to devalue a business and that is to have no
independent valuation.
I’ve seen entrepreneurs trying to raise money at a valuation of £2
million, and when asked why they have that value, they’ve said, ‘We
need £200k investment, but we don’t want to give away more than
10% of the company.’ Hardly justification for a seven-figure value.
Those who do raise money are able to show an independently
produced valuation that explains how it was calculated.
The valuation report will normally show the financials or
projected financials along with industry data on what other
companies are worth and potential acquirers. This is important
because it indicates how the business will be valued at a later date
when the investor wants to liquidate their holdings. If they invest
based upon a multiple of profit, it is reasonable that they will exit
based on a multiple of profit.
If you show your investor or lender a valuation and they question
it, make sure you can say, ‘I didn’t make this up, it was created by
an independent professional.’
The ultimate valuation of a business is a public listing where the
stock is valued moment by moment on an exchange. All things
being equal, publicly listed companies often achieve higher
valuations than their private counterparts because they’re perceived
as less risky, more liquid and transparent. When the value of your
business equity has been verified through transactions, it becomes
an asset that your business can leverage. Each year many companies
are bought and sold based on shares in the company being used as
consideration for the deal.
If you want to know more about business valuation, grab a copy
of What’s Your Business Worth? on Amazon. You can also get a data-
driven valuation for your business cheaply and quickly at
www.bizequity.com
ASSET 23: STRUCTURE
Businesses are more or less fundable depending on their structure

and the jurisdiction they’re based in.
Investors want three things from a structure – control over their
investment, reduced risk to their investment and easy liquidity to
unlock their returns. A good structure in a familiar jurisdiction with
appropriate safeguards is appealing and will give more funding
options.
A business can be structured in many ways. Here are a number
of structures you can talk with your accountant about:
Sole trader. This is an individual who is running a business

themselves. Normally this is not a fundable structure other than by
small loan/overdraft facilities or investment from friends/family.
Limited liability company. This is the most common business

structure, designed to limit the risk of the business to the business
itself. The owners of a small limited liability company are normally
asked for personal guarantees when raising money.
124 24 Assets
Subsidiary company. This is a limited liability company that is

owned by another company (parent company), and for that reason
it typically has smaller funding capability than the parent company.
Partnership. This structure formally organises the business interests

of groups of people. It’s common within professional services like
accounting and law, and often the partners all need to agree to
funding requirements.
Discretionary trust. A trust structure is a more complex entity that

holds assets in limbo and can disperse benefits to beneficiaries. It
has discretion as to how, when and to whom it disperses benefits.
Unit trust. This is a trust that has a set number of beneficiaries

(units). It has prearranged rules on how much is distributed to each
beneficiary.
Charity/not-for-profit. This structure operates in much the same way

as a company, but there are no shareholders. Therefore profit cannot
be disbursed and must be redistributed back into the activities of

the charity or not-for-profit organisation.
Unlisted public limited company. This is a company that declares its

finances publicly and agrees to complex regulations which makes
it more attractive to investors. This is normally a company that is
preparing to publicly list its shares on a stock exchange.
Listed public limited company. This is a public company that is listed

on a stock exchange, making it easier to buy and sell shares. It often
attracts the highest valuation because it is less risky for investors
and offers greater liquidity than an unlisted or private company.
The second consideration is the jurisdiction of the company. Even

within the USA, each State has its own regulations and tax laws
for companies. Around the world, countries try to attract companies
with low tax rates and low regulations.
This doesn’t mean that you should necessarily set up in the
lowest tax country. Vanuatu in the South Pacific Islands has a low
tax rate, but investors don’t want to invest there because its legal
system is not set up to protect them adequately. There’s no easy way
to enforce agreements or transparency once the investment has
been made.
Investors and lenders normally like to deal in major economies like
the USA, UK, EU, Australia, Canada or Singapore. Normally, investors
and lenders prefer to deal in the jurisdiction that they themselves are
based in or know. In the USA, many investors only invest in companies
based in the particular States they are familiar with.
Restructuring a company is expensive, disruptive and time
consuming. If you change jurisdictions or trading vehicle, you’d
126 24 Assets
better be sure it’s worth it and all your investors are in favour.
However, if done correctly, a restructuring can add a lot of value
and investment potential. For example, a limited company in South
Africa that becomes a public company in the UK will become more
valuable and investable.
The structure of the business can also include the way the
business is controlled. Facebook is structured so that it’s founder
Mark Zuckerberg is ultimately in control even after his percentage
ownership is diluted by investors. If you invest into Facebook shares,
you have to agree to this structure that reduces your power.
Smaller companies use shareholder agreements to formalise
issues of control over information rights, appointing directors, the
ability to block a sale and other structural issues.
ASSET 24: RISK MITIGATION
Every investor or lender is interested in the opportunity or upside

of their investment, but equally important to them is the potential
loss of capital. They want to see assets that protect the business
from harm and their money from evaporating.
There are a number of risks that all investors are concerned
about. Whether they ask you or not, they generally have these sorts
of questions buzzing around in their minds:
•
•
What if the main people leave or can’t work?
•
What if the leadership team makes stupid decisions?
•
What if someone runs off with the money?
What if there’s a dispute between shareholders and/or
directors?
•
•
What if the CEO/Founder isn’t performing?
•
What if the strategy isn’t working as planned?
•
What if the business gets sued?
•
What if the business gets hacked?
What if the business is impacted by a rare event (fire, flood,
• What if the business fails?

theft, etc)?
These concerns can be addressed with a few key assets:
A well-constructed Shareholders’ Agreement. In addition to clarifying

and formalising the company structure, this document addresses in
advance all the scenarios that are important to shareholders from a
perspective of risk. It covers things like how dividends will be paid,
how disputes will be resolved, how new shareholders will be vetted,
how important decisions must be agreed and how Directors and
leaders will be appointed or changed.
An experienced Board of Directors who are known and trusted offers

investors huge comfort because it reduces the chance of poor
decisions or unethical behaviour. It also maximises the likelihood
of good decisions and increased value.
Guarantees, warranties and debentures. When investors have access

to a back-up plan, they feel safer. If you guarantee the investment
with your house, you can almost certainly borrow up to the value
of your home equity because now it’s you taking the risk and not
the investors. If you warrant that they will get their money back
first in the event of a liquidation, it reduces their risk, provided they
believe a liquidation would cover the capital they put in.
128 24 Assets
You will need to discuss these options with a lawyer who can
help create suitable protections for your investors.
Policy. If you can showcase how well you have thought through
legal, operational or cyber-security risks and mitigated them with
strong policy, you will improve your chances of investment. Show
that you have policy in place for protecting your business assets and
the capital that has been trusted to you. Ensure that the policy isn’t
a token document, but a strictly enforced procedure that offers
genuine risk reductions.
Insurance. Some risk can be externalised through insurance, such

as professional indemnity insurance or ‘key person insurance’ that
protects against the loss of a person who is vital to the business.
Having an insurance policy that protects against harm can be the
ingredient that makes an investment or a loan proceed.
These risk mitigation assets add to the overall fundability of your

business and ensure you get the highest valuation on the best terms
possible.
RAPID ACTION STEPS

1. Get a business valuation from www.bizequity.com.
2. Hire someone outside the company to write a Business Plan
and Forecast.
3. Talk to an accountant and lawyer about ways to improve
your structure and legal agreements in preparation for
investment. You may not go ahead with the investment, but
it will get you thinking differently about your business.
4. Strengthen your Board of Directors by appointing an

experienced individual with a good reputation.
Jeremy Harbour has bought and sold over 50 companies and now
runs a private equity firm in Singapore. He says:
‘There’s so much money sitting in the investor community looking for

opportunities to invest. Billions upon billions of dollars have to be
invested each year, and traditional investments simply aren’t producing
returns like they used to. The problem is often that entrepreneurs fail to
present their business as a suitable investment. Small companies appear
risky, illiquid and unable to handle invested funds. When you can solve
those problems, there’s no shortage of funds available. A big part of the
solution is having funding assets that explain your business in the
language of an investor.’
SUMMARY
ASSETS ARE THE KEY
Revenue, profit, scale, valuation, fun and freedom all follow assets.
Consider what it would feel like to have all 24 of these assets
functioning at a remarkable level. Imagine that you have
professional videos online that drive sales every week, a brand
guidelines document that makes everything in your company look
perfectly on message, highly talented people fighting for jobs on
your team, and a Business Plan and valuation that allow you to raise
all the money you want without losing control of your baby. How
great would it be to take a six-week holiday to a remote location
that barely has an internet connection and not worry about how
the business will perform without you there?
I can tell you from personal experience a business can genuinely
feel like an asset – as solid as a house, as predictable as a rental
property, as flexible as owning shares and as scalable as a website.
If your business is run as an ecosystem of highly functioning assets,
it will not be a drain on your energy; it will leave you feeling proud,
uplifted and free.
Amazing things happen within my business empire that I don’t
132 24 Assets
instigate. We win awards that I didn’t know we had entered. We

hire talented people whom I’ve never met. We deliver great value
to clients whom I’ve had no contact with. We sell products that I’m
not familiar with. We have seven-figure revenue coming from cities
that I rarely visit. All of this is possible because my team
understands how to create and utilise assets.
I don’t write books about business; I run businesses and write
books about what I’ve learned. I’m sharing my learnings because I
want you to shortcut the time it took me to implement these
strategies. I’d love for you to achieve more in the next three years
than I did in the last 10.
Depending on where you are in your business journey, you might
be feeling overwhelmed by the 24 Assets methodology. It might feel
like I’ve piled 24 projects on to your to-do list that are each
complex, time consuming and expensive. I get it. Business is tough
at times, and it can seem like there’s an endless list of things that
are important, urgent or both. You probably feel stretched already
with your time, money and focus – developing the 24 assets will
take effort but it will be worth it.
If I’ve learned anything in the past 10 years of working with
entrepreneurs it’s that the easy stuff isn’t very valuable. Is there an
easy approach to doing anything of value? Are there a few exercises
that give you the perfect body? Are there quick steps to raising
happy children? Is there a shortcut to having a long, healthy
marriage? Is there a cheap approach to building your dream home?
Entrepreneurs who are constantly looking for the quick-fix, the
cheap shortcut or the magic bullet stay broke, spending decades in
struggle.
Summary – Assets are the key 133
Entrepreneurs who expect to build a business over seven years

with plenty of blood, sweat and tears get more done and build more
value. In all the valuable areas of life there are strategies that work,
best practices to follow and philosophies to learn from, but
ultimately it takes effort, creativity and commitment to get rewards.
The desire for a smooth road is what makes people feel every little
bump. As soon as you accept that the road is long and rough, it
suddenly seems smoother and more manageable. Especially if you
have a good map for where you are heading.
The 24 Assets approach is about giving you a framework to focus
your energy. But it isn’t easy. It requires you to lean in and build
value in a multitude of ways, allocating money, time and creativity
across two dozen areas of business.
The next section of the book is designed to give you some
guidelines to follow as you implement the 24 Assets framework into
your business. It will help you dig deep, stay focused and get the
results.
PART 3
ASSET
CREATION
CHAPTER 13
WHAT ARE YOUR

CORE ASSETS?
All the 24 assets are important to make up your business, but at

least two will be highly relevant to you. These are your core assets.
Protect and value them above all others.
Google’s core assets are its intellectual property (in particular its
algorithms) and its culture (its ability to attract people who can
keep innovating at warp speed). If everything else failed, with the
best search algorithms and the smartest people, Google could
rebuild its other assets quickly.
Apple’s core assets are its brand and its products. This business
almost died when the products became sloppy and the brand
boring. It was revitalised when the products became world class
again and the ‘Think Different’ campaign reminded people why
they loved Apple.
Airbnb is built on market and systems assets. It defined a new
category in the market (position) and has a huge database of houses
138 24 Assets
available to rent, combining that with a totally innovative system

for listing and managing properties for short stays.
Microsoft’s core assets are funding and market. One
breakthrough moment for Bill Gates was securing a big channel to
market with IBM. Ever since, the business has remained dominant
because it is so effective at managing channel partners. The other
big breakthrough was when Bill Gates successfully secured a high
valuation and did an IPO (initial public offering) at a time when it
was rare for a tech startup to get serious funding. As the most
funded tech company, Microsoft was able to spend its way out of
most problems, and to this day, MSFT shares trade at a value
equivalent to 29 years of profit.
Amazon’s core assets are systems and market. Jeff Bezos
developed the simple payment system called ‘1-Click’ in 1999 and
it catapulted Amazon ahead of other eCommerce platforms. To
this day, the sales, operations and delivery systems are a huge asset
to Amazon and something it innovates constantly. Additionally,
Amazon is a leader in data, positioning and channels to market. It
probably knows more about what you like to buy than you do.
These businesses are now strong in all 24 assets. Amazon has a
huge valuation and is a globally recognised brand; Microsoft has a
treasure trove of intellectual property and a distinct culture; Apple
has world-class systems; Airbnb has a huge funding capability. But
they took off in the early days because of a few core assets and then
developed the others.
Double down on at least two of your business’s assets and become
world class at these. All of the assets are important, but the core
assets are religion – the linchpins that all else hangs on. More often
Chapter 13 – What Are Your Core Assets? 139
than not, your core assets are the ones your business was founded
on. At the very beginning, there was something special that
emerged to give you an edge in your market.
If you ask your customers, ‘What matters most when you work
with us?’ or ‘What are the things that drew you to working with
us?’ the answers will reveal your core assets.
BizEquity.com offers a revolutionary approach to valuing
businesses. A valuation from an accountant can cost many thousands
of dollars and take several weeks to complete. BizEquity uses data
and algorithms to deliver a valuation report instantly for a few
hundred dollars.
The CEO of BizEquity, Mike Carter, knew his core assets from
day one. Before he developed the other assets of the business, he went
all-in on acquiring 33 million records of data and working with
professors at Harvard to construct a bulletproof algorithm to crunch
it. When I first met Mike, the team was small, the brand and
products were at an early stage of development, but it didn’t matter
because the core assets were leaps and bounds ahead of the market.
Over the last three years, Mike Carter and his team have kept
the core assets strong while developing the other 24 assets to add
value to the whole business.
The 24 Assets system can’t save your business if you don’t have
strong core assets. It might look good, but it is going nowhere
without you putting extra effort into the core assets. They give you
the power to meet customers’ needs in a way that is better, cheaper,
faster or gives greater emotional payoff than other businesses. The
degree to which you facilitate that is the degree to which your core
assets are clearly valuable.
140 24 Assets
This requires self-awareness, curiosity and honesty. Identify what

matters most to your market and then become your own harshest
critic, digging for flaws in your core assets and resolving them.
FARMING FOR ASSETS
When my wife Aléna buys a turkey for Christmas lunch, she does
her research. She starts by Googling the term ‘organic turkey farm
UK’ and a list of results appears on her screen. She then looks
through the pages for clues that she’s found the type of turkey she’s
looking for – one that has had a healthy, happy life (except for the
last few minutes).
A little place called Graig Farm in Wales caught her eye. On the
webpage is information about the family that owns and runs the
farm, a video series about their farming philosophy, a section that
talks about the daily routine of the farm and the type of food the
turkeys eat. There are hundreds of customer reviews, photos, lots
of awards and statistics. After 15 minutes on this website, Aléna
had no reason to shop around any further. She bought a 5kg bird
for the price quoted on the website and it arrived 48 hours later,
then she told several of her friends and our dinner guests about the
quality of the farm. They too went on to buy from this family
business.
Other farmers in the UK may look at the website and say, ‘So
what? That’s how most family run farms look.’ So why can’t they
sell their produce for half the price asked by this little boutique
farm?
For any organic farm, the core asset is its quality product. When
the core assets are strong, especially in established industries, the
other assets give a business the edge. The family at Graig Farm
recognised they were sitting on thousands of potential assets and
formalised them, putting it all online for Aléna to see.
Almost all the assets I have talked about in this book are closer
to you than you may think. You probably already do something that
could be entered for an award or have photos on your phone that
would win hearts and minds if more people saw them. You may
package up products and services, but you’ve not given that package
a unique name. Many assets are right there, waiting for you to
formalise them.
To gain some perspective, you need to get some distance from
142 24 Assets
your business. A masterpiece isn’t recognisable if your nose is

pressed against the canvas. Likewise, being too close to your
business prevents you from seeing its real value. Step back and
appreciate it. Go out and talk to people who can offer a perspective.
Customers can give great insights, as can investors.
One of the best perspectives you can get is from a person who’s
built the type of business you aspire to. When someone has
previously built a business that runs like an asset, they can easily
see what’s missing from other people’s enterprises. A performance
business entrepreneur can glance at a startup and know what sort
of a future it has. A lifestyle entrepreneur knows what you need in
the business and what can be cut out in order to enjoy more time
on holiday. Be curious and open to every perspective that comes
back to you.
First-rate suppliers also know what’s wrong with your business
(within their field of expertise). A book publisher, a digital agency
or a finance professional can often reveal gaps in your thinking.
Many times, I have walked into the offices of a supplier to talk
about an idea I’ve cooked up only to be told that it won’t work (for
good reasons) and then offered an alternative.
A business accelerator is powerful because you’ll be surrounded
by people who aren’t close to your business but are encouraged to
offer feedback and ideas. In this environment are experts and
experienced entrepreneurs as well as dozens of peers to draw upon
for advice.
I am always blown away to see ideas generated by people in vastly
different industries. In Dent’s accelerators, I’ve seen mortgage
brokers teaching fashion photographers how to create repeat
business in a totally new way. I’ve seen the CEO of a plastics

manufacturer bouncing systems ideas around with the Managing
Partner of a family law practice. These ideas are groundbreaking
because people in different industries can often see value that’s
hiding right under your nose.
You already have a big farm that’s endlessly growing assets.
Identify, capture, formalise and utilise them.
CHAPTER 14
BUILDING
YOUR ASSETS
CAN YOU BUILD A HOUSE?
I’ve been inside hundreds of houses. I’ve seen tens of thousands of

houses from the outside. I have no idea how to build one. If I tried
to build a house, I would fail because I don’t know enough about
the foundations, the electrical wiring or the plumbing. Even if I
managed to get some sort of structure in place, I would struggle to
sell it because experienced buyers would spot the signs of an
inexperienced owner-builder.
The same is true for building a business. People who try to build
businesses on their own often leave out crucial elements of each
asset, and these errors accumulate. Eventually when they attempt
to sell their business, the buyer points out their shortcomings and
the sale price drops well below their expectations.
I used to wonder why big businesses wasted money working with
expensive suppliers when they could have done the work in-house.
146 24 Assets
Why would a bank get an agency to develop its branding assets for
£400k? Why would a telecommunications company hire a
consulting firm to create a team training and development process?
It initially made no sense to me.
Then I thought about it in another context. A property developer
works with leading architects and engineers. They sign deals with
estate agents to sell the properties and town planners to liaise with the
local council. Experienced suppliers not only get the job done right,
they also add value to the asset. Buyers trust and will pay more for a
property that’s been developed alongside award-winning suppliers.
When you’re building a business, the suppliers you choose add
to its value and scale. Certain suppliers are best for building a
lifestyle business – typically they provide off-the-shelf customisable
products and services that support a small business to focus on its
core assets. Other suppliers are perfectly suited for developing a
performance business that has a high valuation – they custom build
assets that make a business extra special and attractive to
institutional investors or acquirers.
Since 2007, I’ve worked closely with Steven Oddy who runs
SOtechnology, a multi-award winning digital agency
(www.sotechnology.co.uk). Over the years, he’s developed large
chunks of Dent’s digital strategy and ensured that we are always
two steps ahead of our industry. He suggested a data gathering asset
that cost £15,000 to create and generated over £2 million in sales
over three years. He also suggested that we create a blog for industry
influencers to post content on. It generates over 10,000 unique
visitors to our site each month, and it cost just £6,000 to produce
and £300 a month to manage.
Chapter 14 – Building Your Assets 147
Another supplier is a multi-award winning film production

business Really Bright Media (www.reallybrightmedia.com) which
happens to be co-founded by my sister Justine Priestley. Each
month I go into the London studio and record 90 minutes of
interview questions that its directors talk me through. This one
activity produces dozens of video assets that we use for marketing,
team training and added value for clients. I always marvel at how
90 minutes of me answering questions somehow turns into
professional looking content that will serve our business in a
multitude of ways.
I work with Lucy McCarraher and Joe Gregory at Rethink Press
(www.rethinkpress.com) to produce my books. They take my rough
draft manuscript and turn it into a high-quality publication. With
decades of experience, they know all the tweaks and refinements
that go into creating a successful book. In the UK business book
charts, at any given time you’ll often see three or four of their
creations in the top ten because they know what works.
When you work with successful, experienced, award-winning
suppliers to build your assets, life gets easier. You don’t have to
pretend to be an expert in film production, design, publishing,
coding, animation, technology, accounting, law or team training.
Your suppliers will know what the industry trends are and how to
produce assets that will retain value even when you’re away on
holiday or exit the business. They know what ideas to keep and
what to throw away. A great supplier will come to you with ideas;
they won’t let you pursue a short-term fad or something that’s now
out of date.
If an entrepreneur is trying to save money by working with
148 24 Assets
average suppliers, or worse doing everything themselves, they’re

building a business that isn’t worth anything long-term. This is
painful. It means they can sacrifice decades of their life without a
payoff.
When you work with great suppliers, you build more valuable
assets faster.
EVERY PROBLEM IS AN ASSET DEFICIENCY
It’s easy to throw people at a problem. If you don’t have enough

sales, hire more sales people. If customers are complaining, hire a
customer service manager. Accounts in a mess? Bring in a new
bookkeeper.
Most problems are symptoms of not having an asset in place.
Sales performance could dramatically improve without the need
for any new sales people if the business released a set of podcasts
featuring high-profile industry experts. The accounts could be in a
mess because there’s no on-boarding process for sales people
explaining the importance of correctly entering information into
the CRM system. Complaining customers might transform into
flag-waving fans if you have a portal for them to log into and solve
their own query. Any unique methodology that your business
develops could provide each and every client with additional value
and certainty. Then they’d be likely to tell others about this method
rather than complaining that they didn’t get what they wanted.
Hiring people isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If you hire people
who are going to sweat the assets and improve them, you’re on the
right path. When Starbucks hires an extra person, it knows it will
earn another $1,000 per month of profit from that person utilising
Chapter 14 – Building Your Assets 149
the Starbucks assets. The new person will use the systems, represent
the brand, sell the products, generate more data and even increase
the Starbucks valuation. Because the assets are in place, hiring a
new person is a smart thing to do.
But if the assets are not in place, more people equals more
headaches. New people who aren’t given great systems, products,
training, branding and IP to leverage don’t tend to improve the
business. Then if you throw people at problems, your RPP drops
fast. There’s no such thing as a white-knight employee who will
come in and develop your business for you – employees can only
be as good as the assets you give them allow for.
If you don’t earn enough money to live an exciting global lifestyle
filled with travel, adventure and abundance, you probably don’t have
enough business assets. If I were to give you a property portfolio of
24 nice houses which would be 100% yours to own, rent, sell or
mortgage, how would you feel about making money next year?
Would you be stressed about your income, future and livelihood?
Would you feel safe taking a holiday? Would you be hiring dozens
of people to help you? My guess is you’d feel a lot more relaxed
because you’d have a strong asset portfolio behind you.
It’s now time for you to develop digital assets that give you the
same sense of freedom, security and contribution people once felt
from owning houses. When you address the ‘asset deficiency’ in
your business, you’ll have income and increasing value regardless
of what you do with your time.
CHAPTER 15
THE ASSET
CREATION CYCLE
Asset creation goes through a predictable cycle in order to become

something that’s remarkable, and each of your 24 assets will have
to go through this cycle. Entrepreneurship is hard because there’s
a lot to do to make all 24 assets stand out but that’s also why your
business will be highly valuable when it’s done. The cycle of
valuable asset creation goes through these steps:
CONCEPTS AND IDEAS
Ideas are exciting and fun but get way too much credit. When
people tell me they have a valuable idea, I immediately disagree
with them and say ideas are worthless. Ideas only have potential if
they are taken on a long and arduous adventure. Microsoft had the
concept of the iPad long before Apple, but didn’t take it through
the asset creation cycle as quickly as Apple did.
At the idea phase, ask yourself whether you are willing to take it
152 24 Assets
to its ultimate conclusion. A good question to ask is, ‘Would I run

with this idea for several years receiving almost nothing in return
for my efforts?’ A great idea is one that you’ll pursue even when
your friends seem to be making more money doing something you
could be doing too – and you don’t care.
Another question is, ‘Does this idea leverage or multiply my
existing skills, experiences and assets?’ Virgin has a strong brand
asset, market asset and culture asset that Richard Branson can use
to enhance almost any product. When he chooses ideas to devote
his time to, he looks for products that leverage his existing brand,
market and culture assets. Unless you’re young or willing to start
over completely (which I don’t often recommend), your ideas
should build against each other and create a multiplier effect.
Within the context of your existing business, brainstorm ideas
for each of the 24 assets. Good ideas happen when you allow
yourself to generate bad ideas too.
James Altucher, author of Choose Yourself, says, ‘If you can’t come
up with 10 ideas, you should come up with 20.’ Take the pressure
off and get a volume of ideas before you start to judge. If you are
coming up with a list of potential brand ambassadors, don’t shoot
down a suggestion because you don’t know how you would contact
a particular person. At a later point, you can explore your options
and refine the list. In the ideas stage, let them flow.
CONSTRUCT A BRIEFING DOCUMENT
After you have an idea, construct a brief for a supplier. This could
take the form of a Word document, a video, a slide-deck or a set of
drawings. Your goal is to put as much important detail into the brief
Chapter 15 – The Asset Creation Cycle 153
as possible – show clippings of existing work you love, do screen

recordings that show websites you admire, put together slides about
your perfect audience.
When you have a briefing document, sit down with some trusted
people and pitch your idea to them. They could include your team,
potential clients, friendly investors or experts. You want them to
criticise the idea as well as praise it.
My mentor Mike Harris (who built three multi-billion dollar
businesses) said to me, ‘Embrace the critics.’ He loved it when
people gave him negative feedback – rather than being offended,
he became curious and asked them lots of questions. He believed
that the gift of honest negative feedback was gold dust that you
rarely get even when you pay a team of consultants.
After harnessing the feedback and making changes, you can then
select suppliers who can begin prototyping.
SELECT YOUR SUPPLIERS
Don’t build your ideas yourself – it doesn’t work. You have your core
competency which is probably quite narrow. For everything else,
use an excellent supplier to get it right.
Present your briefing document to your suppliers, and be sure to
tell them the outcome you want. Be open to their input –
sometimes suppliers can help you get to the same outcome faster
and cheaper if you’re not rigid on your ideas. It’s worth making the
stretch to work with suppliers who are a little bit out of your current
league. Suppliers who serve businesses you admire will help you lift
up to their standard.
If you have great suppliers, it’s easier to get funding too. If you
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were an investor and you had to choose between a company

working with award winning suppliers or a team that was trying to
do everything itself, which would you put your money into? Most
investors are reassured to see wise choices in suppliers.
If paying for great suppliers is a problem, you might want to
begin by developing your funding assets so that you can raise the
money to build a valuable business rather than wasting your time.
With a compelling briefing document, you’ll get to meet great
suppliers to discuss, bounce ideas, prototype, design, code, record,
edit, draw and create together. The chemistry will be dynamic at
times and frustrating at others, but it will feel like you are making
real progress.
Until it’s done.
BETA VERSION
Despite your best efforts, the first outcome will be underwhelming.

Sure your idea will show some promise and a few early adopters
will love it (because they see where it’s going), but it will have
problems, flaws and shortcomings. Very rapidly the excitement and
anticipation you had for the project will fade and you will be
dissatisfied with your creation. A big mistake is to think that your
efforts have been wasted. An underwhelming first attempt is a
completely normal part of the process.
Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive worked for several years together on
the iPhone. When they released it in 2007, it was a flawed device
with a short battery life, software bugs and limited functionality.
True Apple fans loved it, but in the wider business landscape, it was
considered to be impractical for everyday use.
The purpose of a beta version is to get feedback from the market.

It’s not the finished version and it’s not the version that will make
you millions; it’s the version that will break and need fixing – this
is normal and it’s a good thing.
The trick is to capture the feedback quickly and introduce a new
version as soon as you can. Go back to the briefing document phase
and list all the changes that need making, look for solutions to the
problems and find additional suppliers who can improve certain
details. Buckle down with your suppliers again and pull together a
new version with all the improvements. At first you’re likely to
resent the process, but when you see it coming together there’s a
good chance you’ll be blown away with how great the changes are.
COMMERCIAL VERSION
After this reinvention phase, relaunch your product, and this time
it will work. It will do what you promised it would do, clients will
be satisfied, your team will be relieved and you’ll start seeing some
rewards. The iPhone 3G was the second version Apple produced.
The battery life was adequate, there were thousands of useful apps,
the camera was decent and the design was more elegant. It sold
much better and silenced a few of the sceptics.
At this point you’ll have something that helps to pay the bills
and washes its face for the time, money and effort you’ve put in,
but you still won’t have your big payoff. The product will be doing
well, but it won’t have tipped you into the upper echelon.
The strong temptation here is to stop and think about
completely new ideas. Having reinvented this thing, you can easily
think you’ve peaked. You’re no longer getting negative feedback,
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most people are satisfied, so it’s difficult to see what needs

improving – maybe the idea was only average in the first place.
Don’t stop just yet. Buckle down again. Do your best to tear the
thing apart; explore what’s possible; ask yourself tough questions
as to the nature and core essence of what you are trying to achieve.
Trim the fat, and be willing to get rid of anything that’s good but
doesn’t quite blow people away. Push your suppliers to dig deeper
and produce their best work.
Relaunch the product, and if it’s not remarkable, go back and
repeat the reinvention process until it is.
THE REMARKABLE VERSION
Now, and only now, do you find out if that idea you had was of
value. Through the process of reinvention several times over, you
will have created an asset at a level very few companies push
through to.
Today the iPhone is regarded as the most successful product in
history. It’s a supercomputer in your pocket with over 250,000
professionally produced apps, seamless integration with the Cloud,
a camera that rivals an SLR, stunning design and bulletproof supply
chain. When you create an asset at a remarkable level, people tell
their friends about it, and those friends tell their friends. People
tweet and post on Facebook about it, and pretty quickly it scales.
The scale-up is cheaper than the initial creation because it’s built
on word-of-mouth and social sharing. The money other companies
spend on sales and marketing campaigns, you take as profit.
Finally, the hard work pays off when you hit the level of
remarkable. You and your team are proud of what you’ve done, and
you know very few others will have the dedication to compete with
what you have built. You’ll be referred to as an overnight success,
and people who were unwilling to invest will now throw money at
you (but you won’t need it so much). At this point, work hard to
stay remarkable, but you don’t have to completely reinvent yourself.
Apple’s new iPhones aren’t radically evolving now; Lego innovates,
but it doesn’t mess with its remarkable brick system; Porsche
updates the 911 rather than reinvent it.
A REMARKABLE BUSINESS
Your business is an ecosystem of 24 assets, so if you want to have a

remarkable business, you need to go through the asset creation cycle
with all 24. Your content, your ambassadors, your sales systems, your
gift product, your business plan – all must stand out. Then you’ll have
created a very valuable business. Today, many companies are being
bought for 10–20 times their profit. Put another way, the owner gets
over a decade’s worth of profit in a single transaction, so they have
the next 10+ years with both time and money on their hands. Not
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only that, they have the skills to do it all again if they want to, and
investors who will back them. People can copy one or two aspects of
what they do, but they can’t copy their whole ecosystem.
It’s not enough to get 23 out of the 24 assets to a remarkable
level if you want maximum value. That would be like building a
beautiful home but not putting any glass in the windows. A buyer
won’t pay full price if there’s still work to be done. With your team,
conduct a quarterly inspection of all the 24 asset categories and
look for anything that is less than remarkable. Remember that a
remarkable asset is one that stands out – people talk about it for all
the right reasons.
Become a connoisseur of remarkable businesses. Look for the
individual assets that make them so remarkable. The greatest
shortcut to creating something remarkable is to copy something
that is already remarkable – to steal someone else’s ideas and make
them yours. I only have one rule when it comes to copying ideas
and that is to steal from industries as unlike your own as possible.
When I created the Key Person of Influence Accelerator I
wanted it to be able to run in multiple cities around the world. I
asked myself which brands already had a time-tested and
remarkable business running in multiple cities – my best answer
was Cirque du Soleil’s shows and Les Misérables. I loved the way
they had a different cast and crew in each city, but the shows were
the same. They’d got it right then didn’t change much. I loved how
they had darkened auditoria and impressive printed materials. As
a result, we started running events in theatres. We upped the
standards of our printing and scouted our mentors from local talent
rather than touring a small number of gurus.
Stealing ideas from theatre productions and putting them into

leadership training and business accelerators is fine. No one says
you’re a scoundrel when you use ideas from different industries.
On the flip side, my business has been copied by countless people
in similar industries. They rename a concept we’ve been talking
about for years, use the same venues we’ve used or make their
webpages look like ours, and it simply doesn’t produce the same
result. What almost always happens is that people immediately
compare them to us, and because it’s obvious that we innovated the
ideas, the copycat gets put out the door.
An interesting activity as you go looking for the remarkable in
each of the 24 assets is to buy a dozen magazines you would never
normally buy and scour them for ideas. What can you learn from a
feature in Model Rail? How do people advertise in Max Sports &
Fitness? What catches your eye in Superyacht World? Visit websites,
subscribe to newsletters, walk into the retail stores of industries that
are nothing like your own.
Remarkable businesses can stay in the family for generations.
Provided you pass on the secrets of their success, your children’s
children can continue the legacy, adding new markets and
territories, and improving the assets where necessary. You might
even decide to give your wealth away to worthy causes. Making
money is fun, but transforming the lives of others and improving
the planet is beyond words. We were born into a time when it’s
possible to have a greater impact than ever before.
Great companies sell for large sums of money because it’s hard
to build one. If it was easy, no one would pay to buy a successful
company; they’d just create it from scratch themselves. Given that
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it’s hard to do, find people who can help you. Success is less about
your individual talent and more to do with the environment that
brings out the best in you.
BLACK BELTS BEAT WHITE BELTS
Which martial arts style is best? Is it karate, judo, kung fu, jujitsu
or tae kwon do?
Every style has its advantages and drawbacks, but if you want to
be a black belt you have to choose a style and go deep with it.
There’s no point jumping from beginner class to beginner class in
different styles; you’ll always be a beginner and end up confused.
At some point you need to choose a martial arts school, commit
to practising that way, getting better over time and accepting that
there will be some bloody noses. There’s no avoiding the work or
the practice if you want the results.
It’s the same with business. There are many approaches, many
‘black belts’ to learn from, many books to read and much work to
do. If you jump from idea to idea, book to book, seminar to seminar
you’ll always be a beginner. At some point you need to pick a style
and run deep with it.
One common behaviour I’ve seen in my millionaire mentors is
that they read and re-read a small selection of books by a few
authors they admire every year. Their goal is not to learn new ideas
but to become world-class at implementation.
A common trait I see in people who are struggling is that they
read a new book every month, watch lots of videos and attend lots
of free seminars, but rarely go deep into any one discipline.
When you discover an approach that resonates, you should
immerse yourself in it. The information in a book won’t change

things, the application of that information will. Not at a superficial
level – at a level that gives you a black eye!
It would be easy to read this book, put it down and move on to
the next game-changing title. It’s a lot harder to insist on putting
ideas in place and not moving onto new content until you’re seeing
results.
I want to encourage you to stop reading new books, going to new
seminars, consuming a wide variety of videos and podcasts. Instead,
pick a style and run deep with it – get yourself into the environment
and implement.
In the next chapter, we will explore what a high-performance
environment looks like so you can get the support you need.
CHAPTER 16
ENVIRONMENT
DICTATES
PERFORMANCE
I used to believe that there were successful people and unsuccessful

people. I assumed that the difference between the two was attitude,
skills and personal development. This led me to attend dozens of
programmes with an aim to fix my shortcomings or limiting beliefs.
I wanted unshakable confidence, crystal clear vision and the secrets
to unlocking everlasting happiness. If I could get those things,
surely I would be successful.
On my personal development journey, I walked on red-hot coals,
karate chopped boards, broke arrows on my neck, set fire to pages
of limiting beliefs, crafted dream-boards and visualised successful
scenarios during guided meditations. All this inner work felt
amazing and I was sure it would have a positive effect on my results.
Sadly, the reality set in when I stayed with some friends who had
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been doing personal development for decades. In their tiny run-

down flat, they had shelves full of workshop manuals, walls full of
dream-boards and framed wooden blocks they’d broken year after
year. Over a glass of carrot juice, they confessed to me that they
were in serious debt from doing these programmes and they hadn’t
yet built their consulting business successfully. They hadn’t even hit
100k in annual revenue.
As a result of building fast growth businesses from a young age,
I have had the chance to rub shoulders with individuals who have
multiple homes, yachts and sports cars. These rich friends have all
the stuff my personal-development friends pinned on their dream-
board, but they often weren’t very personally developed. Almost all
had insecurities, good days and bad days, they weren’t crystal clear
all the time and they never did things like fire walks or wooden
board-breaking. One of them didn’t even believe in goal setting!
How was it possible that personally developed people were
struggling while people who didn’t even have a dream-board were
making huge successes of themselves?
I discovered an interesting truth – there’s no such thing as
successful people and unsuccessful people. Anyone can become
successful if they have the right environment to succeed.
ENVIRONMENT DICTATES PERFORMANCE
There are environments that make you seem like a confident

extravert; environments where you will sit quietly, not engaging
with anyone; environments that allow you to focus for hours;
environments that make you distracted and prone to
procrastination. A soldier could be powerful, brave and organised
Chapter 16 – Environment Dictates Performance 165
within a military environment. Later, that same person may struggle

to achieve basic living standards in the civilian environment. A
Google employee won’t think twice about working on an app that
reaches 10 million new users in a matter of weeks. Take them out
of Google and they might struggle to start a business that reaches
10,000 people, ever.
When you know what you want, find an environment where it
would be normal to achieve it. I became highly attuned to this
concept and looked for the ingredients that would make up a high-
performance environment. It turned out that environment has less
to do with the physical space and more to do with four other factors.
ACCESS TO CURRENT BEST PRACTICES
The process of trial and error takes a long time. For many hundreds
of years, sailors died of scurvy. They tried everything to prevent this
– rubbing salt on the skin, praying to Poseidon, abstaining from
alcohol, drinking extra alcohol, and of course the use of leeches.
None of it worked and they continued to die at sea until the
fortunate discovery that oranges cured scurvy. Oranges! All along
the cure was simple, cheap and accessible.
I see entrepreneurs struggling and failing in business. They pray
to the business gods, they keelhaul themselves, they drink, they stop
drinking, and still the problems persist. Often the solution is simple,
cheap and accessible, but unknown to the person who’s suffering.
Without best practices, they’re left to explore the painfully slow
process of trial and error, and each lesson could take years to
discover. If they have access to current best practices, they can move
their business forward quickly.
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I succeeded in my first business because I’d been given access to

all the best practices at that time for my industry. I knew how much
to spend on marketing, who to hire, what to say in a sales meeting,
how to solve a customer complaint and how to create a product
offering that would sell. As a result, I hit $1 million plus revenue
in my first year of business at age 22, starting with little more than
a personal credit card for funding.
We live in a world where the answers are already out there.
Plentiful, low-cost targeted leads exist, and there’s a best practice
for generating a steady stream of them. Talented, dynamic, results-
focused people exist, and there are best practices for attracting them.
Systems that do the heavy-lifting for your business exist, and there
are best practices for implementing them.
Best practices change every 18 months now. What works today
won’t necessarily work in two years from now. There are some core
principles that are timeless, but the execution shifts across
platforms, styles and technologies. This is why a high-performance
environment should give you access to an unfolding conversation
about the best ways to achieve a result.
Activity: what is one area of your business you don’t really understand
(marketing, accounting, legal, finance, etc)? Go and find three best
practices in that field that help you to better understand it.
A PEER GROUP TO NORMALISE HIGH STANDARDS
Statistically, if you try to train for a marathon on your own, you

have very little chance of starting the race, let alone finishing it. If,
however, you join a group of people who are all training for a
marathon, you have a huge chance of finishing with a respectable

time. Yet few people consider running a marathon as a team sport.
I’ve witnessed the power of a peer group many times in the last
seven years of running business accelerators. We create a book-
writing challenge for our participants, and collectively they have to
write 1 million words in six weeks (about 25,000 words per person).
This activity normalises the results and the activities that produce
the results – our clients’ peer group is writing a book, so it becomes
normal to write a book. They find themselves writing in a coffee
shop between meetings; they get up early to write; they write
instead of watching the news. They don’t want to be the person
who lets the group down.
Your income is typically the average of your five closest friends.
I once spent time with a group of super-successful entrepreneurs
who were comparing notes on how much annual income they
needed to live comfortably. They each had a number close to 1.2
million, and reasoned that was needed considering they had school
fees, multiple homes, charity contributions, alimony payments and
boats to run. For their peer group, 100k a month was normal.
If you look around and discover your peers aren’t living the life
you want to live, add some new friends who normalise the results
you want for yourself. If you want to get fit, you need more fit
friends. If you want fun, you need more fun friends. If you want
success, you need more high-achievers in your group.
Activity: make a list of the five people you spend the most time with.
Do these people have the kind of results you want for yourself ? Do
they live the lifestyle you aspire to? If not, can you think of some
people you want to connect with who would lift you up?
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EXTERNAL ACCOUNTABILITY AND CONSEQUENCES
It turns out humans are hardwired to procrastinate. For tens of

thousands of years, being a motivated self-starter who got up early,
exercised, strategised and began tasks months in advance burned
too many calories and killed you. The smartest thing a hunter-
gatherer could do was to conserve energy and respond to threats
when they arose.
I’m shocked to discover that high performing people often
describe themselves as natural procrastinators. If they weren’t being
held accountable, they simply wouldn’t be doing half the stuff they
get done. Sometimes I meet a naturally motivated person and
discover they have a huge amount of pain in their past that requires
them to rise above it every day. Motivational icon Tony Robbins
had a highly abusive childhood and decided to fight his way out of
it. He appeared to be self-driven, but in many ways he was facing
a very real threat.
For those of you who aren’t dealing with a threat, put in place
external accountability systems. To be clear, pay someone, join a
group or set up an ugly consequence for not acting. The
accountability needs to be daily or at least weekly, because humans
are hardwired to wait until the last minute. If you have a quarterly
deadline, you’ll probably begin to act less than a month from it.
I was highly motivated to succeed because I started my business
on a personal credit card and I didn’t have the funds to pay off the
balance unless I made sales. I quickly got over my fear of talking to
strangers because the fear of not clearing my balance was greater.
As my business evolved, I was motivated by the fear of not making
payroll and later I hired consultants and coaches that I respected

to help keep us on track – the consequence of inaction was that I
would pay a high fee and get nothing in return.
Activity: who do you have currently holding you accountable for

your actions? How could you increase the stakes?
ACCESS TO RESOURCES
Sometimes you just need £3 million. One of our clients had

everything they needed to succeed except for the money to scale
up their business rapidly. The CEO asked me to help him raise the
money and I agreed. After eight weeks of meetings, the money was
in the bank and the business took off.
Sometimes you just need a brilliant supplier. A client was a
world-leading expert in DJ techniques and wanted to scale his
music school to the world. He needed technology providers who
would help him to execute his ideas with excellence. We introduced
him to SOTechnology and within months his online systems were
generating unprecedented growth for the business.
Sometimes you just need strong legal advice, HR contracts,
templates, a loan, a salesperson, a database or speciality equipment.
Access to resources is a necessary and often overlooked aspect to
high-performance.
Research shows that the majority of successful entrepreneurs
actually grew up in wealthy families and had access to resources
(read the report ‘What Makes an Entrepreneur?’ by David G.
Blanchflower and Andrew J. Oswald: http://www.andrewoswald.
com/docs/entrepre.pdf ). More often than not, they had startup
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capital, accounting and legal support, and safety-nets in place if

they failed. All these resources allowed them to get going –
personality traits, desire and goals didn’t make as much difference
to success as having resources did.
Rags to riches stories make the papers, but the majority of
success stories don’t start with rags. If you’re lacking resources it’s
not game-over, get into an environment that can provide them. The
very definition of entrepreneurship is to undertake a commercial
venture that requires resources you don’t currently control.
Activity: make a list of the resources you wish you had. Who already
has plenty of these resources and how would you create a deal that
would give you access to the resources and would appeal to their
self-interest?
You can use these four principles of high-performance environments

to improve any area of your life or business. You can join a tennis
club, cooking school, dance academy or investing group and if it has
the four ingredients you’ll improve your results dramatically.
My team and I created Dent Global to run accelerators based
upon these four principles so that entrepreneurs would be in the
right environment to achieve their best output. The results have
been staggering – after working with 3,000+ clients, we’ve seen vast
numbers become authors, win awards, launch new products, hire
great people, raise money at a value they didn’t realise was possible
and exceed their financial projections. Working alone hadn’t
produced those results, but as soon as they were in the right
environment, the results became inevitable.
It’s never been more important to be aware of our environment.

The world is going through an astounding shake-up, and in the
absence of a positive environment there are distractions, negativity,
bad ideas and a scarcity of resources. Our own personal
environment is within our control but it’s also worth paying some
attention to the big trends that make up the macro environment.
We are standing on the shore of the digital revolution, surfboards
under our arms, and there’s a big wave coming.
CHAPTER 17
THE GREAT WAVES
There’s no doubt now that 2016 was a turning point in the world.
The good, the bad and the ugly unfolded more rapidly than ever.
The UK referendum favoured Brexit – driven by a campaign to
close borders, stop immigration, take back control and return to being
‘Great Britain’. The USA elected Donald Trump, who ran a
campaign based on building walls, putting Muslims on a watch list,
creating coal mining jobs and ‘making America great again’. The
Australian government was in limbo for weeks after the election gave
no clear result when a host of populist candidates rose to prominence
and split the vote. Italy’s banking and political crisis started to boil
over. Cold-war tensions resurfaced and NATO troops were deployed
near the border of Russia. In France, the populist candidate Marine
le Pen lurched forward in the polls with a message of closing borders
and mosques, returning to ‘France’s former glory’. Everywhere, liberal,
open global society seemed to be unravelling, or at least transforming,
at a speed few people had experienced in their lives before. It seemed
that people everywhere wanted to go back to a time they perceived
as being ‘great’ – a more conservative, closed kind of great.
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Why was this happening in an age of abundant technology,

entertainment, innovation, prosperity and health? Why were people
so mad at governments? Why were people feeling so disenfranchised?
The answers we are given by the mainstream press mostly come
back to Muslims, millionaires and migrants. The real answers relate
to bigger trends that can’t easily be fixed with political upheaval;
the fault lines run deeper.
All these events were linked to trends in technology and
demographics. We are living through times of great change driven
by digital technology that has put a super-computer in the pocket
of nearly 2 billion people. At the same time, life expectancy has
extended by decades and we have a huge wave of people – Baby
Boomers – entering their 70s.
As a flow-on effect, almost every natural system on the planet is
dealing with new pressures. The convergence of these trends creates
a massive wave that is transforming the way the world lives, works
and shares wealth. As with any wave, there are two sides to it –
some people, businesses and organisations are going to surf and
some are going to get dumped and swept out to sea.
THE FIVE GREAT TRENDS
Five mega-trends are converging; just one of them would be

enough to transform the business landscape, but all five
simultaneously will cause one of the greatest shifts human
civilisation has ever seen.
Trend 1: Ageing Baby Boomers. In 1945 World War Two ended and
the soldiers returned home. Traumatised by their experiences in war
Chapter 17 – The Great Waves 175
and driven by their longing for their loved ones, many returned
with one thing on their mind – find a girl, settle down and start a
family.
In 1946 there was a huge spike in the birth rate, and it continued
until 1964 as these families had their second, third and fourth
children. Combined with breakthroughs in medicine reducing the
infant mortality rates, this created a huge population spike.
The Baby Boomers quickly became an economic powerhouse.
In the 50s, baby food, nappy and toy companies saw explosive
growth, and the government had to build schools to keep up with
the demand. In the 60s, the music industry exploded as the
Boomers discovered acts like Elvis, The Beatles and The Rolling
Stones. The term ‘1970s used-car salesman’ conjures up an image
of a fast-talking young hustler with gold chains and a flashy watch.
The Boomers wanted to buy their first cars in the 1970s and used-
car salesmen got rich as a result. In the 80s the Boomers wanted
bigger homes and mortgages went to double-digit interest rates.
The 90s saw the rise of home entertainment and personal
computers as Boomers filled their lives with electronics. In the
2000s, Boomers decided they needed to own investment properties
and stock portfolios so asset bubbles were created.
This generational demographic is huge, and whatever they
collectively spend money on is impacted. Billionaire Sir Richard
Branson has ridden this trend perfectly by starting a student
magazine, becoming a music mogul, getting into travel, then
finance. Rumour has it his next venture involves cruise ships and
nursing homes.
In 2016, the youngest Baby Boomers were mid 50s and the
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oldest turned 70. As people retire, they earn less, pay less tax and
need more social welfare and healthcare. The drawdown on savings,
pension funds and accumulated equity begins to increase. There is
also a mindset shift from hopefulness to nostalgia and from
liberalism to conservatism.
All over the world, Boomers have begun moving away from big
cities and into areas that are better suited for older people. These
communities are going to feel the effects of the Boomers’ decline
in spending and increased demands for care.
Conversely, urban areas are full of young ‘Millennials’ (born
1980–1998) who are approaching the career uplift that occurs from
age 35. As a generalisation, cities like New York, London, Sydney
and San Francisco are full of young, affluent, educated professionals
with their best earning years ahead of them, while suburban areas
tend to be full of people whose highest income is behind them.
This creates a huge disparity in the mindset between urban areas
and their suburban counterparts, which sets the entire tone for the
western economy.
As a result of this trend alone, there will be political, social and
economic upheaval in the coming 15 years. If you’re unaware of why
this is happening, you might give up on your dreams in the midst of
the changes. But if you understand this trend, you can make more
informed decisions about where to do business, why certain news
events happen and what to ignore as noise. Your business might be
better expanding into London, New York, Sydney and Singapore as
opposed to wider regions of your own country.
Your 24 assets will keep your business global in a time when local
markets will be looking pretty choppy. If you have developed your
24 assets your business is less linked to geography and you can easily
respond and move to wherever the best opportunities present
themselves.
Trend 2: Disruptive Millennials. While the Boomers are going

through major life changes brought on by retirement, the
Millennials are breaking all the rules of prior generations.
According to Goldman Sachs, the median age for getting
married has moved from 23 in 1970 to 30 in 2010. Millennials don’t
just get married later, they buy houses later, have kids later and are
more interested in experiences and ‘access’ rather than ownership.
The Millennials are a different generation from their parents and
grandparents for several reasons. They’re ‘digital natives’, having
grown up with a PC in their home and a mobile phone from a
young age. They were the first generation to be given credit cards
from the age of 18, and most had to pay for their university degrees.
Boomers grew up with parents who’d faced wars and great
depressions and had grown accustomed to austerity and rationing
– they told their kids to work hard, get good jobs and save.
Millennials grew up with enthusiastic Baby Boomer parents who
told them they’re special and could do anything they set their minds
to. They have constant media images of celebrities’ lives as well as
contemporaries who are saving the world, floating companies on
the stock exchange or living off-the-grid in tropical paradises.
Against that fantastic backdrop, incomes haven’t risen much in a
decade, house prices are 10–15 times their annual pay cheque (Baby
Boomers bought houses at 4–6 times the average wage) and many
Millennials are in debt already. These young people tend not to
think much of settling down and paying off a car and a seven-figure
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mortgage – especially when the world is full of Airbnb homes to

stay in, Uber drivers to move them about cheaply and endless
Tinder dates to romance.
At the exact same moment, Baby Boomers want to sell their
houses, liquidate their stock portfolio and live off the proceeds, the
Millennials are completely uninterested in buying. This spells out
a huge economic change ahead.
Many Millennials are highly engaged in tearing down the last
remaining walls of the industrial age and bringing forward an open,
random and connected world. They’re armed with all the
technology, information and media resources they need to unleash
a wave of transformation.
I’m betting that the world will not go back in time to an era of
closed borders. The genie is out of the bottle and the digital revolution,
led by the Millennials, is unstoppable. No physical wall can prevent
technology from making the rest of the world a few clicks away.
Developing your scalable digital assets is vital to stay ahead.
Without new-economy digital assets, you’ll be stuck in a localised
world where those around you are struggling. With digital assets,
you can tap into the movements of those who are mobile and
affluent and scattered all over the world. Build a business that can
reach people anywhere – a business that is bursting at the seams
with high-quality digital assets.
The most important real estate is the mobile phone screen – a
few square inches that occupies the attention of a typical Millennial
157 times per day. If your business isn’t built for the smartphone
screen you’re going to miss out on the Millennials and the emerging
markets.
Trend 3: Technology unemployment. For the last 50 years, technology

has been our friend because it makes any human being more
powerful and efficient. An accountant with a PC is a more
productive and knowledgeable accountant; a driver with an on-
board computer is a better and safer driver.
This isn’t going to be true for much longer because new
technology is removing the need for human intervention.
A visit to the local supermarket demonstrates this perfectly. It’s
obvious that the self-checkout machine removes the need for a
checkout person, but what you don’t see is the software running
behind the scenes, updating inventory, financial and management
systems in real time. All of these systems used to need humans
running them, but not any more. Computers are far more reliable
and intelligent than most people could hope to be.
The USA manufactured twice as much in 2015 as it did in 1985,
but it did so with one third of the workers. Foxconn in China is
replacing over 50,000 workers per year with fully autonomous
robots that can assemble all sorts of products. The West might
bring local manufacturing plants back, but it won’t bring the
manufacturing jobs back – software, media and machines are the
builders of the future.
It’s no great secret that manufacturing jobs are being automated,
but highly-skilled knowledge workers are on shifting sands as well.
Artificial Intelligence can solve a wide range of problems that only
the smartest humans have a grasp on.
180 24 Assets
There are three types of artificial intelligence (AI):
• Narrow AI: a system that can do a narrow set of things well

• General AI: a system that can do all sorts of things well
• Super AI: a system that is far more intelligent than the
entire human race combined.
Already we have narrow AI in everyday life. A calculator is a

narrow AI because it performs a single function very well but doesn’t
do much else. Google is running a narrow AI, so is the algorithm
that prices airline tickets, the Amazon book recommendations you
get and the newsfeed you see on Facebook. Narrow AI is so
ubiquitous that we rarely stop to marvel at it any more.
The most advanced narrow AI is able to diagnose diseases,
compose music, write news articles, value businesses, advise on legal
cases and detect lies and emotions in real time.
General AI is starting to arrive in the form of Siri on Apple
smartphones or Alexa on Amazon Echo. This ‘digital assistant’
technology can help organise your day, do your banking, get you to
your flight on time and reply to emails that don’t need your
attention. Siri functions as a central intermediary for lots of narrow
AI systems to interact with a human. If you ask it ‘Will I need an
umbrella today?’ it knows you are asking about the weather so it
translates your request into a search on a narrow AI weather
program, then translates the answer back to you as ‘I don’t think it
will rain today.’
In reality, Siri didn’t think at all; at least, not the way we humans
do. It just knew which app to use to find the weather and how to
translate the answer back into ‘human speak’.
Very soon Apple, Amazon and Google will allow developers to

create narrow AI systems that plug into their virtual assistants. Uber
will integrate its car booking app so the mere mention of a journey
begins the process of summoning a car. Your bank will integrate
internet banking functions so that your virtual assistant can fix all
sorts of problems you would normally spend hours on hold dealing
with. Hotels will integrate with Siri so that your visit runs
seamlessly even though all you did was tell your phone you needed
a place to stay. These functions used to be performed by humans,
but now all they need is a general AI using a lot of narrow AI
systems.
This birth of general AI is happening at the same time as we are
discovering systems that can drive your car, invest your money, audit
and file your company accounts, respond to legal issues, diagnose
illness and dispense the right drugs. In the next 15 years, many
human jobs will not be made more efficient by technology, they
will be made redundant.
Some experts point to the industrial age as an example of how
humans elevated out of manual labour thanks to tractors and mills.
Before the industrial revolution, over 80% of the population was
employed in food production. Now it is less than 5%. Fortunately
for humans, when tractors replaced people in farms, we discovered
that we had big brains that could do all sorts of intelligent work.
The difference now is that software, media and machines are
replacing human intelligence, which leaves us with our human
emotions as the last key differentiator. Emotional intelligence is the
new frontier, and if you have a job that doesn’t require you to
empathise, connect, inspire or love then you’re running a risk.
182 24 Assets
It will take decades to transition to a new type of economy that

serves the millions of workers automated out of the productive
economy. The businesses that make it through this change are those
thinking digitally and establishing Key People of Influence within
their ranks. Millions of people will flock to the certainty of a
known, liked and trusted individual who can be accessed across
platforms such as video, audio, blogs, books, profiles and updates –
digital assets.
Trend 4: Government austerity. Governments are incapable of

generating enough taxes to sustain the normal spending and
borrowing habits of the past. For thousands of years, governments
have defined themselves primarily by geography. Each government
defines itself primarily by its geographical borders– the US Federal
Government, the London City Council, the European Union, etc.
This poses a huge problem in a digital world that doesn’t run on
geographical lines anymore.
None of the big companies limit themselves to a geographical
border. They define themselves by their vision, mission and values
and will happily go anywhere they lead. It’s effortless for companies
to move money internationally and profits to a low tax environment.
Historically, countries didn’t really care too much about this
because whatever they failed to collect from corporations, they
made up for with income tax from workers. In a world where people
travel freely and work from anywhere, this gets harder. When
companies can easily outsource labour costs to low income
countries, local governments are in real trouble. In a world where a
lot of the value is created by systems not people, it’s an impossible
shortfall.
The only options are to transform to a global network of

cooperating governments or have government austerity inside
geographical borders.
Another huge impact of this trend is the inability for central
banking to function. Central banking is a system of endlessly
expanding debt to fuel economic growth, and it relies upon a
growing population with growing incomes in order to function.
Without Millennials earning more, getting into debt and having
lots of kids, the Central Bank needs to keep adjusting interest rates
down – except they are already at zero. When interest rates are
negligible, property investors borrow to buy houses and values soar.
People become angry that houses are unaffordable and vote for
hard-left and hard-right politics, causing political systems to become
less trusted. Eventually there’s so much debt in the economy that a
small interest rate rise would crash the entire system. At this point,
the Central Bank is like a car driving with no brakes.
It’s likely that the world will put more trust into the blockchain-
backed digital currency. A platform like Facebook could integrate
a digital currency (or create its own) that would allow digital natives
to trade freely anywhere in the world without using debt-backed
currency from Central Banks.
Geographically defined governments are old-technology
running on an old operating system. They cannot sustain
themselves in the digital economy, and already we’re seeing a
movement of power. Super-cities are more relevant than the
countries they reside in (London is more of a global brand than
England). We are seeing the shift from a world made up of 220
countries to a world defined by 600 super cities.
184 24 Assets
The key to surfing this trend is to have digital business assets

that allow you to reach people in any city across the globe. Be open
to accepting the new digital money that’s emerging as well as
traditional currencies.
Trend 5: Systemic collapse. To top all of this off, the scientific

community is warning that the world is dangerously close to
ecological disaster. This needs fixing urgently.
Global warming is the challenge of our generation, but it runs
deeper than that. We have problems that relate to life beneath the
oceans, deforestation, species loss, super-viruses and a host of other
issues that, if left unchecked, could cause a litany of disasters for
our civilisation. These problems will need all hands on deck.
This might actually be perfectly timed. As people become
displaced by technology, we will have a huge need for them to get
engaged in solving the meaningful problems we face as humanity.
In many ways, Donald Trump is the President the world needed.
Prior to President Trump, the scientific community was crying out

for people to get engaged in environmental issues.
One environmentalist said, ‘Where’s the outrage? Where are the
people marching in the streets? Why is everyone sleepwalking off
a cliff ?’
Donald Trump has done more to galvanise the planet into action
than anyone else. People are beginning to question what they want
for the future, standing up and fighting for a better world. Today,
they are more outraged and active than we’ve seen in decades. They
are marching, petitioning, inventing solutions and being more
aware of their choices. And not a moment too soon. If the world
doesn’t engage in these issues, we face the prospect of leaving an
irreparable habitat to our children.
It’s now the entrepreneurs who are solving the world’s most
meaningful problems. IKEA is utilising its resources to create flat
pack shelters for refugees. Facebook and Google are finding ways
to bring the internet to rural Africa. Tesla is building an end-to-
end solar powered lifestyle for the western world to aspire to.
Funded startups are creating medical solutions for the world’s
poorest, disposal solutions for plastic waste and breeding solutions
for endangered species.
Build a business upon an ideology of values, ethics and
sustainability. The more you rely on digital assets, the more you can
achieve with a smaller ecological footprint. This exponential
entrepreneurial thinking can create fast scaling solutions.
Entrepreneurs are now the ones who can solve meaningful
problems at scale and shape the way we move forward as humanity,
and we’ve all got a big part to play.
186 24 Assets
Lord Dr Michael Hastings CBE is KPMG International’s Global Head

of Corporate Citizenship and Chancellor of Regent’s University
London. He says:
‘Now is the time to build businesses that have a huge impact. That
means becoming successful and making a difference beyond philanthropy
– it’s about embedding values to build value.’
CHAPTER 18
SURF OR
GET DUMPED
Some people look at the five big trends and feel like giving up. They
wonder how they will be able to continue their life as they know it
with so much change. Other people recognise that this is the
greatest shift in wealth in human history and focus on creating the
life of their dreams.
As we hit the apex of the industrial age, wealth accumulated into
the hands of a few people and companies. The digital age will shake
everything up and move money and opportunity to new people and
places. This wave of change is a great thing if you’re an entrepreneur
who can see what’s happening.
Become a surfer. Learn to paddle and then ride the wave.
THE SURFER
Surfing the wave requires you to become a Key Person of Influence.

In my book Key Person of Influence I describe how every industry
188 24 Assets
has people who are known, liked and trusted by so many people
that they are spoiled for choice when it comes to opportunity. These
people are great communicators, are respected for their thought
leadership and have no shortage of ways to make money. They are
the creators and owners of assets. Every time new tech comes along,
it fuels the growth of their brand into new audiences. Each new
disruption opens up a new market.
People like Tim Ferriss (Author of The 4-Hour Work Week), Gary
Vaynerchuk (Founder of VaynerMedia) and Michelle Mone
(Founder of Ultimo) are recession-proof, disruption-proof trend
surfers. The only things they have to fear are self-inflicted errors.
You don’t need millions of followers on Twitter or a New York
Times best-seller to become a Key Person of Influence, though. If
you build a reputation with a few thousand people who watch your
videos, read your blogs and buy your products and services, you’ll
feel solid in these remarkable times.
Chapter 18 – Surf Or Get Dumped 189
PADDLING ONTO THE WAVE
To speed up your business, become campaign driven and run

regular promotions. My book Oversubscribed is about paddling onto
the wave in this way. In it I recommend that you have:
• Weekly LAPS (leads, appointments, presentations and sales).

• Quarterly campaigns that generate buzz and an uplift of sales.
• Annual big messages and causes that de-commoditise you
from your marketplace.
Paddling on to a real wave requires you to move to a rhythm and

put effort into every action. If you paddle hard enough, you catch
the wave and you can stand up and surf. In the same way, a business
requires you to establish a rhythm of sales and promotions and
execute each action with effort and excellence.
As you run your campaigns and promotions be sure to capture
the assets and put them online. For several years you might feel like
you are constantly paddling hard and you’re tired, but keep going.
As you build out your assets, you’re closer than you think to
catching the wave.
RIDING YOUR SURFBOARD
To ride the wave all the way and truly make the most of the times
we are in, you need to create the 24 assets. There comes a time when
your content reaches so many people, your products are referred by
so many clients and your culture attracts so many great team
members that the business takes on a life of its own.
When all 24 of the assets are remarkable, you’ll see opportunity
190 24 Assets
everywhere, effortlessly scale your business, make money, have great

people around you and attract further opportunities. You’ll be
having fun surfing the wave.
Then you’ll be faced with a new challenge – a question that will
gnaw away at you.
‘What is the most meaningful problem I could solve?’
Humans are built to make the most of their surroundings in a
way that benefits themselves and their tribe. They derive meaning
from a blend of personal success and doing the right thing by
others.
A person who has an expanding business that allows them to
improve the environment or society or the lives of individuals is
someone who has a deep sense of purpose and meaning in their
life. Even more satisfaction comes from working with other
change-makers who are achieving success and having a positive
impact on the world at scale. In general, we are a communal species,
and being part of the right tribe unlocks endless rewards.
Why wait until after you are financially successful to do your
most rewarding work? The approach that works best is to choose
something big from day one. Naming something bigger than your
business as a mission expands your thinking and attracts
collaborators. A big problem to solve in conjunction with an
enterprise you want to build creates nuclear fusion powered growth.
Let’s finish this book with something bigger than your business.
Let’s look at the power and purpose you’ll experience when you’re
doing something beyond making money.
SELECTING A GLOBAL GOAL
The United Nations have identified and documented 17 Global

Goals. These goals will move humanity forward, but they require
everyone to get involved in order to achieve them. One of the most
powerful things you can do as an entrepreneur or a leader is to select
one of the Global Goals for your business to champion and find
ways to make an impact in that area.
On the list of Global Goals are outcomes that relate to the
environment, human rights, animal welfare, energy, education,
peace and politics. There’s something for everyone and there’s lots
to be done.
Here’s a list of the Global Goals:
1. No Poverty – End poverty in all its forms everywhere.
2. Zero Hunger – End hunger, achieve food security and improved

nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture.
3. Good Health and Well-being – Ensure healthy lives and promote

well-being for all at all ages.
4. Quality Education – Ensure inclusive and equitable quality

education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.
5. Gender Equality – Achieve gender equality and empower all

women and girls.
6. Clean Water and Sanitation – Ensure availability and sustainable

management of water and sanitation for all.
192 24 Assets
7. Affordable and Clean Energy – Ensure access to affordable, reliable,

sustainable and modern energy for all.
8. Decent Work and Economic Growth – Promote sustained, inclusive

and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment
and decent work for all.
9. Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure – Build resilient infrastructure,

promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster
innovation.
10. Reduced Inequalities – Reduce income inequality within and

among countries.
11. Sustainable Cities and Communities – Make cities and human

settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.
12. Responsible Consumption and Production – Ensure sustainable

consumption and production patterns.
13. Climate Action – Take urgent action to combat climate change

and its impacts by regulating emissions and promoting
developments in renewable energy.
14. Life Below Water – Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas
and marine resources for sustainable development.
15. Life on Land – Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of

terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat
desertification, halt and reverse land degradation and halt
biodiversity loss.
16. Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions – Promote peaceful and

inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to
justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive
institutions at all levels.
17. Partnerships for the Goals – Strengthen the means of

implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable
development.
You can find out more on each of the Global Goals here:
http://www.globalgoals.org
One of the most remarkable organisations I have come across is

B1G1.org (Buy One, Give One). This concept is based on
businesses giving to a cause each time they make a sale. B1G1 has
found projects all over the world that relate to the Global Goals
and created micro-giving impacts that you can factor into every
product or service you offer.
Giving can start small. There are coffee shops where every cup
of coffee factors in the cost of a litre of clean water in a remote
village in Africa (a few cents). Giving can be bigger. When I run
workshops, I factor in the cost of a year’s tuition fees for a student
in India.
The best system I’ve ever seen for turning your business into a
force for good is to select a Global Goal and then use B1G1 to find
a project to support. Because giving is linked to sales, as your
business grows, so does your impact.
From the moment you start this approach, you will build purpose
and contribution into the growth and success of your enterprise.
194 24 Assets
As an added benefit, you’ll be part of an inspiring global community

of entrepreneurs, leaders and change makers. Not only will this
approach attract more customers and better team members, you’ll
unlock a deep sense of pride and empowerment when you’re solving
meaningful problems in your business and in the world.
By the way, as a result of you reading this book, a donation has
been made to give a school student in India a set of stationery to
use at school. Goal 4 – Quality Education for all.
ASSET ZERO
In the Introduction I said there would be something missing –

something that would bring all the assets to life. There is an
ingredient in every successful business that simply can’t be summed
up.
A medical journal could describe all the parts of a human body,
but it can’t describe the human quality that brings everything to
life. In the same way, there’s an asset in your business beyond the
clever methodology or the ultimate checklist that I can’t put my
finger on. I call it Asset Zero.
Your business is here to do something big. You are here to do
something big. Everything you’ve done up until this point has
formed part of your story. Asset Zero is the thing you started with
when you had nothing, and it’ll be the thing that still has your
attention after money, fame, power and influence all show up. It is
right there in the background of every milestone, setback and
achievement you’ve had.
Asset Zero makes you face your fears and take brave actions. It
brings out your passion and your playfulness. It fuels the dent you
want to make in the universe. The 24 assets are important, but really
they’re not very valuable without Asset Zero. Only you can know
what your Asset Zero is.
Strip everything away and what are you left with? What have
you been about since day one? What are you really up to? What is
it that gives you the feeling of being in flow? What lights you up
even though it’s hard? What will you go to your grave trying to get
done in the world?
Success isn’t ‘out there’, and it’s not in this book either. Asset
Zero is the beginning and the end of it. Go find it and unleash it
for the world.
Be brave.
Have fun.
Make a dent.
REFERENCES
http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN06152/S
N06152.pdf
‘Smart and Illicit: Who Becomes an Entrepreneur and do they

Earn More?’ Levine, Ross and Rubinstein, Yona 2015. Archived by
archive.org:
https://web.archive.org/web/20160222033032/http://faculty.haas.b
erkeley.edu/ross_levine/Papers/smart_and_illicit_24sep2015.pdf
What Makes an Entrepreneur? David G. Blanchflower and

Andrew J. Oswald
http://www.andrewoswald.com/docs/entrepre.pdf
‘The Founder’s Dilemmas: Anticipating and Avoiding the

Pitfalls That Can Sink a Startup’ Noam Wasserman 2012.
Princeton University Press
Zero Moments of Truth, Jim Lecinski.

https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/collections/zero-moment-
truth.html
Millenials http://www.goldmansachs.com/our-
thinking/pages/millennials/
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’d like to thank the thousands of clients we work with at Dent

Global for openly sharing their journeys with me. I’ve learned so
much and grown so much as a result, I often think I have the best
job in the world.
I want to thank the team at Dent Global who lean in 100% to

deliver excellence. I want to thank the mentors who share their
hard-won experiences and insights so generously. I want to thank
our investors who take a risk to back the next wave of Dent makers.
I want to thank my supportive wife and family for encouraging me

to build a global business despite the strange hours and travel it
demands.
THE AUTHOR
Daniel Priestley is an entrepreneur and best-selling author. He

started his first company at age 21 and built a multi-million-dollar
enterprise by age 25. He has since gone on to grow businesses in
the UK, USA, Singapore and Australia, as well as be an advisor and
stakeholder in a portfolio of ventures. In 2010, Daniel co-founded
a business accelerator, which has helped thousands of companies
to stand out and scale up. He’s helped to raise millions of dollars
investment funding for ventures and hundreds of thousands for
charities. Daniel is also the author of:
Key Person of Influence – The five-step method to become one of

the most highly valued and highly paid people in your industry.
Entrepreneur Revolution – How to develop your entrepreneurial

mindset and start a business that works.
Oversubscribed – How to get people lining up to do business with

you.
What’s Your Business Worth? – The entrepreneur and advisor’s guide to

discovering, monitoring, and optimizing business valuation (co-author).
Visit www.dent.global/DanielPriestley
200 24 Assets
What Next
1. Complete your 24 Assets Heatmap: www.24assets.com
2. Book a 24 Assets Strategy Session
3. Attend a workshop
4. Review this book on Amazon
5. Be brave, have fun, make a dent in the Universe

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“This book is a powerful new look at how to build

Sadly, most companies don’t perform this way. Most entrepreneurs

“24 Assets offers a fresh look at how to advance your business in

“Now is the time to build businesses that have a huge impact.

“A powerful system for building a business

UK £12.99 / USA $16.99 / AUS $19.99

Books DANIEL PRIESTLEY

Sadly, most companies don’t perform this way. Most entrepreneurs

“24 Assets offers a fresh look at how to advance your business in

“Now is the time to build businesses that have a huge impact.

“A powerful system for building a business

UK £12.99 / USA $16.99 / AUS $19.99

Books DANIEL PRIESTLEY

business that will thrive in a fast changing world

© Copyright Daniel Priestley

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

The right of Daniel Priestley to be identified as the author of this

Illustrations by Andrew Priestley

PART 1 – THE ENTREPRENEUR JOURNEY 5

CHAPTER 7 – BRAND ASSETS 71

A WORD FROM AN EXPERT 117

PART 3 – ASSET CREATION 135

EXTERNAL ACCOUNTABILITY AND CONSEQUENCES 168

Statistically, you’ll work harder and earn less as a self-employed

business or a performance business. In the decades ahead, a

SOMETHING IS MISSING FROM THE METHOD

You might be asking why I’ve honed in on revenue per person

You might also wonder who counts as a ‘person’. In this case, it

THE ENTREPRENEUR JOURNEY

I run a global business accelerator. From 2010–2015, our team

Here are the stages in the Entrepreneur Journey:

1. Startup. Every business began as a concept in someone’s mind, with

2. Wilderness (1–2 founders). After launching, most businesses end

3. Struggling boutique (3–12 people with low revenue per person). A

4. Lifestyle boutique (3–12 people with high revenue per person). A

but can’t afford these roles. Although the fundamental business is

7. Performance (50–150 people with high revenue per person). This is

8. Unicorn (250+ people with ultra-high revenue per person). This is

and achieve soaring valuations in a short timeframe. These

9. The corporation (250+ employees and established in the market).

Knowing these predictable phases can guide you towards the

it’s impossible to plan them and no one wants to be alone in the

Rob has a performance business.

You can choose to pursue a lifestyle or a performance business

Almost anyone can make it to Everest Base Camp, but few

open up new markets, launch new products, increase the employee

In central London there’s a serviced office building, home to over

have four face-to-face meetings a day and typically get £25,000 in

experienced online, transferred as a file or coded as an algorithm, and

The world is full of great business building tools now – Microsoft,

These companies have all invested millions upon millions of

Successful businesses obsess over their assets. They focus on

Like most small business owners, she was constantly on the

1. Passive income means you are trying to make money from

3. It’s not passive. What most people come to discover is that a

Building credible assets.

you to run head-on at the challenges of money, business and work

This explains why so many entrepreneurs pour so much energy into

Step 1: discovery of value. Every business must solve a problem in a

The first hurdle to overcome is to find a problem or an unmet

Step 2: oversubscribed value. The UK Government has a test to see

Step 3: gaining influence. Influence allows you to reach more people,